“You will find our chieftain very far from well,” said Kynewulf, as he walked by Martin’s side.  “He was wounded by one of the arrows from the castle when we came to demand your liberation of Drogo, and the wound has taken a bad turn.”

“How does my poor mother bear it?”

“Like a true wife and good Englishwoman.”

No more was said.  Martin lapsed into deep thought until the retreat of the outlaws was attained.  There, on a couch strewn with skins and soft herbage, lay the redoubtable Grimbeard; and by his side, nursing him tenderly, Mabel of Walderne.  But for this she had been with Martin’s rescuers at the castle, but she could not leave her dying lord, who clung fondly to her now, and would take food from no other hand.

The wound he had received had been thought slight, and neglected.  Hence it had become serious, and since Kynewulf departed mortification had set in.

The mother rose and embraced her “sweet son.”

“Thank God!” she said, and led him to his stepfather’s side.

Grimbeard raised himself with difficulty, and looked Martin in the face.

“Martin is here,” he said.  “Let my dying eyes gaze upon him again.

“Martin, I have longed for thee.  Tell me more about Him thou lovest so deeply.”

“My father, He is waiting to receive and to bless thee.  Cast thyself wholly on the Incarnate Love which embraced thee on the Tree.  Say, for His sake, canst thou forgive all, even these Normans thou hast so hated?”

“Dost thou forgive the wretch who shut thee up, my gentle boy, in that dungeon?”

“Yes, verily, and pray to God to pardon him, too.”

“Then I may pardon my foes, although my life has been spent in fighting against them for England’s freedom.  But I see we must submit, as thou hast often said, to God’s will; and if the past may be forgiven, my merrie men will be well content to make peace, and to turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; especially now Drogo has met his just doom, as they tell me, and thy friend is about to rule at Walderne.  Thou must be the mediator between them and him.

“But oh! my son, it has been hard to submit to all this.  All those I loved when young carried on the fight, and my own father bequeathed it to me as a sacred heritage.  We hoped to see England governed by Englishmen, and the alien cast out; and now I give it up.  The problem is too hard for me.  God will make it clear.”

“My father,” said Martin, “I, too, am the descendant of a long line of warriors, who have never before me submitted to the foreign yoke.  But I see that the two peoples are becoming one:  that the sons of the Norman learn our English tongue, and that the day is at hand when they will be proud of the name ‘Englishmen.’  Norman and Saxon all alike, one people, even as in heaven there is no distinction of race, but all are alike before the throne.”