"Master, master!" cried Robin-a-dale. "Here be company at last. Master!"

Sir Mortimer passed his hand across brow and eyes as though to brush
away thick cobwebs. "Is it you, Giles Arden?" he asked. "It was told
me, or I dreamed it, that you were in Ireland."

"I was, may God and St. George forgive me!" Arden answered, with
determined lightness. "Little to be got and hard in the getting! Even
the Muses were not bountiful, for my men and I wellnigh ate Edmund
Spenser out of Kilcolman. He sends you greeting, Mortimer; swears he is
no jealous poet, and begs you to take up that old scheme which he
forsook of King Arthur and his Knights--"

"He is kind," said Ferne, slowly. "I am well fitted to write of old,
heroic deeds. Nor is there any doubt that the man-at-arms who hath lost
his uses in the struggle of this world should take delight in quiet
exile, sating his soul with the pomp of dead centuries."

"Nor he nor I meant offence," began Arden, hastily.

"I know you did not," the other answered. "I have grown churlish of
late. Robin! a stirrup-cup for Master Arden!"

A silence followed, then said Arden: "And if I want it not, Mortimer?
And if, old memories stirring, I have ridden from London to Ferne House
that I might see how thou wert faring?"

"Thou seest," said Ferne.