fire."

He paused for breath a moment, as if overwhelmed with the horrible memory of what he had witnessed. The gray mare started, spurred unconsciously in his wrath by her rider, who, with teeth clinched, muttered imprecations upon Fulke de Breauté.

"Go on," he said; "let me hear the whole of this devil's work!"

The lay-brother went on.

"Next our father abbot looked down from the window and began to upbraid the impious Fulke for his great wickedness. But when De Breauté heard him, he looked up and cried, 'Hasten, my Lord Abbot, and send me, with all speed, from your abbey coffers the sum of one hundred pounds, not more, not less, or, by my soul, the whole town shall be sacked, and the burgesses served as their bailiff!' Then some of my lord's court waxed wroth, and one of them, a young noble, and a dear friend of my lord abbot, cried, 'Who will with me, that we drive these impious robbers away?' And certain of the household, together with some of the younger serving-brothers, and myself among them, agreed to follow the young knight if he would lead us--"

"'Twas bravely spoken--bravely done," interrupted Ralph impetuously.

"And we rushed out through the gate, and through the fire, and across the burnt body of the bailiff. But, alack! we had but staves in our hands, and clubs--for Holy Church forbids us to use more carnal weapons--and so what could we do against armed men? Our leader was struck down dead by Fulke himself--I saw the deed with my own eyes. We could not get us back into the abbey, for the brethren had closed the gate behind us. We fled, or tried to flee, in all directions. I myself made my way by force of my right arm and my club through the soldiers where the line was the weakest. Whether my comrades escaped I know not. God be with their souls! Then I girded up my frock and ran until I had distanced those who pursued me, clad as they were in their heavy armour. Praise be to the saints, I am healthy and strong, and, thanks to you, Sir Knight, have escaped the broad Ouse's waters as well this day!"

Ralph, who during the lay-brother's narrative had kept up an undercurrent of muttered curses on Fulke de Breauté and his followers, glanced with admiration at the sturdy young hero by his side.

"Methinks," he said, smiting him a good-natured slap upon the back, "that Mother Church has despoiled us of a good soldier here! But, say, how comes it that you make your way by Milton Ford at this flood season, and not high and dry over Bedford Bridge?"

"I have journeyed all night, Sir Knight," he replied, "save that I rested a space in the houses of acquaintances at Luton and Ampthill, to whom I told my tale, and who refreshed me with meat and drink. But when I drew nigh to Bedford, I left the main road, and took the right bank up the river till I reached Milton Mill. I dared not venture to pass through the town. How could I tell but that some of De Breauté's men might not have already returned to the castle, and be ready to fall on any one clad in Benedictine habit, and crossing the bridge from the direction of St. Alban's? The rest, Sir Knight, you know. I suppose I was weak and weary with my fighting and my journeying, and when I missed the ford, had not strength to battle with the stream, many times as I have swum the broad Ouse. Perils by fire! perils by water! But thanks to Heaven and you, Sir Knight, in a short space I shall be once again in my old village home. I have not exactly found the religious calm and peace which was promised me when I professed as a lay-brother six months ago," he added, with a smile.

The recital of this raid on the town of St. Alban's, an account of which has been handed down to us in manuscript by an unknown scribe, together with various suggestions on the part of Sir Ralph for the destruction of Fulke and his "nest of the devil," occupied our travellers till they reached the village of Bletsoe. There the knight saw the lay-brother safe to his father's house, and after many renewed expressions of gratitude from him, rode on alone, further up the village to the mansion of the De Pateshulles.

CHAPTER II.

BLETSOE MANOR-HOUSE.

The manor-house of Bletsoe stood on the north side of the parish church of St. Margaret, about a mile from the point where the river makes a sharp bend from east to south. Of the manor-house, and of the castle which succeeded it, no traces remain, but portions of a seventeenth century mansion, now a farm-house, mark its site. The Pateshulles had come into Bedfordshire from Staffordshire, where is situated the village of Pateshulle, from which they took their name. From them Bletsoe passed to the De Beauchamps, another branch of the family to which Ralph belonged. Their heiress married into the family of St. John, who possess Bletsoe to this day.

But in the early part of the thirteenth century, when the Pateshulles first possessed it, Bletsoe was but a small place, not even fortified, till in 1327, more than a century later, John de Pateshulle obtained from the king a license to crenellate his mansion--that is, to erect defensive parapets on the walls.

The house to which Sir Ralph de Beauchamp made his way was therefore built in the usual fashion of a gentleman's residence at that period--timber-framed, and of no architectural pretensions. At one end of a central hall were the private apartments of the family, at the other the domestic offices and the rooms of the servants and retainers. In front of the hall was a gate-house, where a porter watched continually in his lodge; and from this gate-house flanking wooden palisades ran on either side to the private apartments and servants' offices, enclosing a small courtyard.

As Ralph rode through the gate, a round, white-haired face peeped from the lodge door.

"Soho! Dicky Dumpling," cried the young knight, springing from his gray mare with a ringing of his spurs upon the pavement.

The individual thus accosted emerged from the doorway of his dwelling. Many years of service and of good living in the porter's lodge of the De Pateshulles, combined with very little active exercise, had caused Dicky's figure to assume the rotund proportions not inaptly expressed by the nickname by which he was universally known. When he perceived Sir Ralph, his broad countenance lighted up with a grin of satisfaction, which caused his twinkling eyes almost to disappear among wrinkles of fat, and he waddled forward with as much alacrity as he was capable of and seized the horse's bridle. As he did so, his eyes rested on Ralph's still moist and mire-stained surcoat and dripping hose.

"By St. Dunstan!" exclaimed the old servitor, speaking with the freedom of having known Ralph ever since the latter was a page in his uncle Sir William's service, and came often in his train to Bletsoe Manor--"by St. Dunstan, Sir Knight, and beshrew me if I don't think you choose a cold season to go swimming in the Ouse at flood time!"

"You speak with your usual wisdom, O Dumpling mine," responded Ralph, laughing; "but I've been a-fishing."

Dumpling opened his wide mouth to it fullest extent.

"A-fishing, good my lord?"

"Ay, a-fishing; and I've caught a larger and a fatter pike than ever yet gladdened