and we are late."

Myles, bewildered with his sudden awakening, and still fuddled with the
fumes of sleep, huddled into his doublet and hose, hardly knowing what
he was doing; tying a point here and a point there, and slipping
his feet into his shoes. Then he hurried after Gascoyne, frowzy,
half-dressed, and even yet only half-awake. It was not until he was
fairly out into the fresh air and saw Gascoyne filling the three
leathern buckets at the tank, that he fully awakened to the fact that he
was actually doing that hateful service for the bachelors which he had
protested he would sooner die than render.

The sun was just rising, gilding the crown of the donjon-keep with a
flame of ruddy light. Below, among the lesser buildings, the day was
still gray and misty. Only an occasional noise broke the silence of the
early morning: a cough from one of the rooms; the rattle of a pot or
a pan, stirred by some sleepy scullion; the clapping of a door or a
shutter, and now and then the crowing of a cock back of the long row of
stables--all sounding loud and startling in the fresh dewy stillness.

"Thou hast betrayed me," said Myles, harshly, breaking the silence at
last. "I knew not what I was doing, or else I would never have come
hither. Ne'theless, even though I be come, I will not carry the water
for them."

"So be it," said Gascoyne, tartly. "An thou canst not stomach it,
let be, and I will e'en carry all three myself. It will make me two
journeys, but, thank Heaven, I am not so proud as to wish to get me
hard knocks for naught." So saying, he picked up two of the buckets and
started away across the court for the dormitory.