laughed and said to Osberne: Waywearer is nowise debt-tough; now will our goodman be glad to-night. But see thou! look to the nag's shoes! If ever I saw silver to know it, they be shod therewith. And so it was as he said, and the silver nigh an inch thick.
Soon cometh home the goodman, and they tell him the tidings, and he grows wondrous glad, and says that luck has come to Wethermel at last. But thereafter they found that horse much bettered, so that he was the best nag in all the Wethermel pastures.
Wear the days now till it is the beginning of winter, and there is nought new to tell of, till on a day when it began to dusk, and all the household were gathered in the hall, one knocked at the door, and when Stephen went thereto, who should follow him in save Surly John, and with him a stranger, a big tall man, dark-haired and red-bearded, wide-visaged, brown-eyed and red-cheeked, blotch-faced and insolent of bearing; he was girt with a sword, had a shield at his back and bore a spear in his hand, and was clad in a long byrny down to his knees. He spake at once in a loud voice, ere Surly John got out the word: May Hardcastle be here to-night, ye folk? The goodman quaked at the look and the voice of him, and said: Yea, surely, lord, if thou wilt have it so. But Osberne turned his head over his shoulder, for his back was toward the door, and said: Meat and drink and an ingle in the hall are free to every comer to this house, whether he be
