"It is many a day since I have wondered how ye bore with them." "Since ye press me, Richard, I will own that my lot is hard. I have been widowed these five years. Since Winge my husband died, the land and goods with which he left me--aye, and mine own goods which I brought him--I may not call mine own. The first they till and order as they will, and the yield thereof they put with the yield of their land. As for the goods, they all lay hands upon them with never a 'by your leave' to me! Ulwin would have sold my mirror of steel last week, but I hid it.... Richard Scrob's son, there are two of thine oxen among the cattle at the Moor. At least, I am sure I saw them at Martin's Fair within thy pen." "Let them be. I have enemies enough at this time. To claim your goods! To sell your mirror!" "They grudge me this my new cloak," Alftrude continued, drawing a fold of periwinkle blue from beneath her winter wrapping. "True, it is not of my weaving; but mine own corn did I sell to buy the cloth. I believe they grudge me my mother's own jewels! Ulwin, and Alward, and Ednoth, and their mother, and the wives of the three. There would be no pleasure for any but Ulwin, if he could have his way: others must scrape and lack for him. A bad husbandman, too, is Ulwin. Men will give him but little for his crops and cattle. And that little leaves his poke that he may feast and game, and bet on sparring-cocks. But I think the women are the worst to dwell with." "And the housewife--your husband's mother? Has she no kindness for thee, who wert wife to her son?" "We were childless, Winge and I." "By holy Stephen! it is a weary life ye tell me of!" "I am well wonted to such weariness. I am four and twenty. A great age, Richard." "Madame, I am thirty-two, and I think that the sweetest of my life is yet before me." "Here is Ludford. Now, God speed you, lord," said she, holding out her hand to him. The next instant she withdrew it in confusion, exclaiming: "I know not why I clepe you lord!" "I know," said Richard, and took her hand. "Alftrude, I will see to it that thou become a very great lady." From the thicket bordering the pathway proceeded gasping, panting, maudlin complaints, and thickly-uttered curses; then came the sound of a feeble struggle as though a heavy body strove vainly to extricate itself from glutinous, liquescent soil. Richard the Scrob got down from his horse, handed the reins to Perot, who walked beside him, and strode in among the alders. The light of the sinking moon revealed a man lying face downwards, his legs submerged in a marshy pool, his hands clinging to a tuft of rushes. Having chosen a firm foothold, Richard seized the unfortunate by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him on to more or less solid ground. The bloated visage, streaming with mud, was just recognizable as that of Ulwin of the Moor.