The outlaws shouted with joy.
"And now," he said, "let us talk of Herwald, and I will do all I can to help you to deliver him; but it will be a difficult task. I must take time to consider it."
Meanwhile old Judith sat at home in the lonely hut, as she had done on the occasion recorded in the fourth chapter of our tale. Again she sat by the fire which smoked on the hearth, again she sang quaint snatches of old songs.
"It is a wise son which knows his own sire," she said, and going to a corner of the hut, opened once more her poor old rickety chest, from which she took the packet of musty parchment, containing a ring with a seal, a few articles of infant attire, a little red shoe, a small frock, and a lock of maiden's hair.
"Poor Ethra," she said, "how strange thy fate!" and she kissed the lock of hair again and again. "And now thy boy may inherit his father's honours and titles unchecked, for his supposed grandfather is here no longer to claim him, and his half-brothers are lepers. Wulfnoth never loved him—never. Why, then, should he not give him up to his true father? Vengeance! to be sure, he should not desire this now. A monk, fie! fie! Wulfnoth might seek it; Father Alphege cannot, may not. He will tell Osric the whole truth, or refer him to me; and he may go back with a clear conscience to Wallingford; and I shall have the proofs ready, which the Lord of Wallingford would give all he has to possess. Here they are, stripped from the dead attendants or found on the helpless babe."
Just then she heard steps approaching; she jealously hid her treasures.
A page dismounted from his horse at the door of the hut.
"Is the squire Osric within?"