this over I went on into the house.

The door opened into the sitting-room that had a low roof of plaster and
big oak beams. There I found my mother kneeling by the table upon which
food was set for breakfast: fried herrings, cold meat, and a jug of ale.
She was saying her prayers after her custom, being very religious
though in a new fashion, since she was a follower of a preacher called
Wycliffe, who troubled the Church in those days. She seemed to have gone
to sleep at her prayers, and I watched her for a moment, hesitating to
waken her. My mother, as even then I noted, was a very handsome woman,
though old, for I was born when she had been married twenty years or
more, with white hair and well-cut features that showed the good blood
of which she came, for she was better bred than my father and quarrelled
with her kin to marry him.

At the sound of my footsteps she woke up and saw me.

"Strange," she said, "I slept at my prayers who did so little last
night, as has become a habit with me when you are out a-fishing, for
which God forgive me, and dreamed that there was some trouble forward.
Scold me not, Hubert, for when the sea has taken the father and two
sons, it is scarcely wonderful that I should be fearful for the last of
my blood. Help me to rise, Hubert, for this water seems to gather in my
limbs and makes them heavy. One day, the leech says, it will get to the
heart and then all will be over."

I obeyed, first kissing her on the brow, and when she was seated in her
armed chair by the table, I said,

"You dream too well, Mother. There is trouble. Hark! St. Clement's