too long to tell thee, lord, at present, which have stirred up our scattered folk to meet together in arms.  Moreover, the blood of our young men is up, because the Burg-devils have taken some of our women, and have mishandled them grievously and shamefully, so that naught will keep point and edge from seeking the war-clash.  Furthermore, there is an old tale which hath now come up again, That some time when our folk shall be in great need, there shall come to our helping one from afar, whose home is anigh; a stripling and a great man; a runaway, and the conqueror of many:  then, say they, shall the point and the edge bring the red water down on the dear dales; whereby we understand that the blood of men shall be shed there, and naught to our shame or dishonour.  Again I mind me of a rhyme concerning this which sayeth: 

    The Dry Tree shall be seen
    On the green earth, and green
    The Well-spring shall arise
    For the hope of the wise. 
    They are one which were twain,
    The Tree bloometh again,
    And the Well-spring hath come
    From the waste to the home.

Well, lord, thou shalt tell me presently if this hath aught to do with thee:  for indeed I saw the Dry Tree, which hath scared us so many a time, beaten on thy sergeants’ coats; but now I will go on and make an end of my story.”

Ralph nodded to him kindly, for now he remembered the carle, though he had seen him but that once when he rode the Greenway across the downs to Higham.  The old man looked up at him as if he too had an inkling of old acquaintance with Ralph, but went on presently: 

“There is a woman who dwells alone with none to help her, anigh to Saint Ann’s Chapel; a woman not very old; for she is of mine own age, and time was we have had many a fair play in the ingles of the downs in the July weather—­not very old, I say, but wondrous wise, as I know better than most men; for oft, even when she was young, would she foretell things to come to me, and ever it fell out according to her spaedom.  To the said woman I sought to-day in the morning, not to win any wisdom of her, but to talk over remembrances of old days; but when I came into her house, lo, there was my carline walking up and down the floor, and she turned round upon me like the young woman of past days, and stamped her foot and cried out:  ’What does the sluggard dallying about women’s chambers when the time is come for the deliverance?’

“I let her talk, and spake no word lest I should spoil her story, and she went on: 

“’Take thy staff, lad, for thou art stout as well as merry, and go adown to the thorps at the feet of the downs toward Higham; keep thee well from the Burg-devils, and go from stead to stead till thou comest on a captain of men-at-arms who is lord over a company of green-coats, green-coats of the Dry Tree—­a young lord, fair-faced, and kind-faced, and mighty, and not to be conquered, and the blessing of the folk