"Nay, fire is what I seek," stammered Dickon, almost in fright at the ghost-like form before him, and at the strange sound of a tinkling bell echoing from the rocks overhead. "Canst not wait till thou art dead for that?" the white-robed phantom said, in tones of earthly vexation. He would have shut the door at this, but that Dickon sprang forward, thrust his bow against the inner frame, and clutched the friar by the arm. "Fire! fire!" he cried. "Give me that to kindle fire, or I kill you--like the others!" The monk stood stock-still, and curled the thin corners of his lips in scorn at this rude boy, and held him with his bright, sneering gaze. Dickon looked into these sharp, cold eyes, and felt himself a noisy fool. "Nay, father," he stumbled on, pleadingly, "if I get not a fire, he dies!" "Hast thy head full of dead men, seemingly," the young Cistercian replied. He cast his glance down over this rough visitor, and noting the blood-splashes upon his hose, lifted his brows in wrathful inquiry. Then he snatched up the crucifix from the end of the chain at his girdle, and thrust it swiftly into Dickon's face. "Who art thou, churl?" he demanded. "Whose blood is this?" [Illustration: "WHOSE BLOOD IS THIS?"] Dickon's nerve sank into his shoes. "A boar that I have slain, good father," he answered in a mumbling whimper, "and lack fire wherewith to roast it; and the raw flesh is ill food, and he can eat naught of it, and gets no warmth, and must die if I win not a fire." At this the monk softened. He led Dickon into the outer porch, and gleaned the purport of his story. Only Dickon said nothing of the book or of the two men he had killed. "Fire thou shalt have," the young monk said, more kindly, when Dickon's tale was finished. "But first go through the gates before thee to the hall, and take all thou wilt of meat and ale. None will deny thee. 'Tis the eve of holy Christmas, and though we fast, thou and thy kind may feed in welcome." "It is only fire I seek," said Dickon, doggedly, though all his vitals clamored in revolt against the speech. "Food I will none till he hath supped." "So be it," said the monk, and left Dickon alone under the groined archway in the growing darkness. Presently he came again, and put flint and steel and tinder into the lad's hand. He gave him also a leathern bottle stopped with wax and a little cheese wrapped in fine straw. "Bear these along," he said. "It is the Christmas eve. Peace be with you," and so motioned the boy away. Dickon's tongue was not used to words of thanks, and he had turned in silence to go out when the monk called to him, and then came forward to the outer door. "You were to kill me--like 'the others,'" he said, with a grim smile curling his lips. "What others?" "Two of Sir Watty's men, whom I smote down as they would have fallen upon _him_," said Dickon, pride struggling with apprehension.