The two men looked sharply at the boys, and then, after a murmured consultation, one turned on his heel and disappeared. The other, espying the leathern bottle, grew friendlier, and lifted it to his lips by an undivided motion from the ground. Then he said, drawing nearer to the blaze and heaving a long, comforted breath:—
"Whose man art thou?"
"This is my master," replied Dickon, with his thumb toward Andreas, "who was most foully beset by robbers, and is like now to die if he win not help and shelter."
"That shall be as my lord duke willeth," said the soldier.
As he spoke, the sound of more clanking armor fell upon the air. In a moment a half-dozen mailed men stood at the entrance to the copse, gazing in with curious glances.
Behind them were men with flaring torches, and in their front was the stately figure of a young knight, tall and proudly poised. A red cloak and fur tippet were cast over his shining corselet.
This young man had a broad brow under his hanging hair, and grave, piercing eyes, which passed over Dickon as mere clay, and fastened a shrewd gaze on the lad in velvet.
"It is the German gift-tree," he said to those behind him, whom Dickon saw now to be gentles and no common soldiers. "I have heard oft of this, but looked not to see it first in Shropshire. What do you here?" he asked at Dickon, rather than of him, and with such a flash of sharp, commanding eyes that the lad's tongue thickened, and he could make no answer.
Andreas it was who spoke, when words failed Dickon, in a voice firmer than before, and lifting himself on his elbow.
"He saved my life, my lord," he said. "And I am dying, I think, and this tree the good fellow tricked out to please my sick fancy. And I pray you, for a dead lad's sake, have a care for him when I am gone."