"'Twas but nineteen!" growled Roger, frowning at Walkyn.
"So will I make of this hangman the twentieth!" said Walkyn, frowning at Roger.
"'Tis a sweet thought," laughed the archer, "to it, lads, and slay each other as soon as ye may, and my blessings on ye. As for us, Sir Paladin, let us away--'tis true we together might give check to an army, yet, minding Sir Pertolepe's nineteen foresters, 'twere wiser to hie us from Sir Pertolepe's country for the nonce: so march, tall brother--march!"
"Ha!" snarled Walkyn, "fear ye Red Pertolepe yet, bowman? Well, we want ye not, my lord and I, he hath a sword and I an axe--they shall suffice us, mayhap, an Pertolepe come. So hie thee hence with the hangman and save thy rogue's skin."
"And may ye dangle in a noose yet for a prating do-nothing!" growled Roger.
"Oho!" laughed Giles, with a flash of white teeth, "a hangman and a serf--must I slay both?" But, ere he could draw sword, came a voice from the shadows near by--a deep voice, clear and very sweet: "Oh, children," said the voice, "oh, children of God, put up your steel and pray for one whose white soul doth mount e'en now to heaven!" and forth into the light came one clad as a white friar--a tall man and slender, and upon his shoulder he bare a mattock that gleamed beneath the moon. His coarse, white robe, frayed and worn, was stained with earth and the green of grass, and was splashed, here and there, with a darker stain; pale was he, and hollow-cheeked, but with eyes that gleamed 'neath black brows and with chin long and purposeful. Now at sight of him, fierce-eyed Walkyn cried aloud and flung aside his axe and, falling on his knees, caught the friar's threadbare robe and kissed it.
"Good brother!" he groaned, "O, gentle brother Martin, pity me!"
"What, Walkyn?" quoth the friar. "What do ye thus equipped and so far from home?"
"Home have I none, henceforth, O my father."
"Ah! What then of thy wife, Truda--of thy little son?"
"Dead, my father. Red Pertolepe's men slew them this day within the green. So, when I had buried them, I took my axe and left them with God: yet shall my soul go lonely, methinks, until my time be come."
Then Friar Martin reached out his hand and laid it upon Walkyn's bowed head: and, though the hand was hard and toil-worn, the touch of it was ineffably gentle, and he spake with eyes upraised to heaven: "O Christ of Pity, look down upon this stricken soul, be Thou his stay and comfort. Teach him, in his grief and sorrow, to pity the woes of others, that, in comforting his fellows, he may himself find comfort."