“Let me hear it.”
“Not yet. Go forth tomorrow. Seek thy kindred, and if thou livest thou shalt know. Tell me, what is thine age?”
“I have seen twenty years.”
“When thou hast attained thy twenty-first birthday, I may reveal this secret—not before. Until then my lips are sealed; such was the will of thy father.”
“Shall I find the outlaws easily?”
“I know not; they have been much reduced both in numbers and in power, and give small trouble now to the nobles and men of high degree. Many have been hanged.”
“Does Grimbeard yet live?”
“I know not.”
“Father, I start on my search tomorrow; give me thy blessing and pray for me.”
Martin could not sleep. He stood long at the window of his cell in a dreamy reverie. The story of the last Thane of Michelham, as related in the Andredsweald, had often been told around the camp fires, and although he was only in his thirteenth year when he left them, it was all distinctly imprinted in his memory. Oh! how strange it seemed to him to be there on the spot, which but for the conquest of two centuries agone would perhaps have still been the home of his race! But he did not indulge in sentimental sorrow. He believed in the Fatherhood of God, and that all things work for good to them that love Him.