before. 'You wear no livery which marks you for the hireling of
the government. You are no friend to us, or I should recognise
you, for the friends of such as we are few in number. What are you
then, and wherefore are you here?'

'I am no foe to the distressed and helpless,' said Will. 'Are ye
among that number? ye should be by your looks.'

'We are!' was the answer.

'Is it ye who have been wailing and weeping here under cover of the
night?' said Will.

'It is,' replied the woman sternly; and pointing, as she spoke,
towards her companion, 'she mourns a husband, and I a brother.
Even the bloody law that wreaks its vengeance on the dead does not
make that a crime, and if it did 'twould be alike to us who are
past its fear or favour.'

Will glanced at the two females, and could barely discern that the
one whom he addressed was much the elder, and that the other was
young and of a slight figure. Both were deadly pale, their
garments wet and worn, their hair dishevelled and streaming in the
wind, themselves bowed down with grief and misery; their whole
appearance most dejected, wretched, and forlorn. A sight so
different from any he had expected to encounter touched him to the
quick, and all idea of anything but their pitiable condition
vanished before it.

'I am a rough, blunt yeoman,' said Will. 'Why I came here is told