"If the worst comes, sweet maid, I will take you aboard my ship."
"But my brother--oh, my brother!"
"He, also, will be safe."
"Would you take us all, and Ester, too?"
"Who is Ester?"
She told him all, for she felt that in this mysterious man she had a friend on whom she could rely. When she had finished, Sir Albert shook his snowy locks and remarked:
"You would do well to keep this from the ears of Sir William, sweet maid."
Then he went away into the forest. That evening, as he sat at the roadside, not far from Jamestown, the wife of Hugh Price, who had been to Greenspring, was returning home on her favorite saddle-horse. The animal became frightened at some object by the roadside, and leaped madly forward. The saddle turned and the woman would have fallen had not Sir Albert rushed to her rescue.
He lifted her from the saddle, and, while the horse dashed madly away, seated the rider safely at the roadside.
"Are you injured?" he asked the half-fainting woman.