“Hubert,” he said at last, “I don’t think I can stay here.” “Why, it is a very pleasant place. I love it more every day, and they are not such bad fellows.” “You are like them in your tastes, and I am not.” “But tell me, Martin, how were you brought up; were you always with the outlaws? You almost let out the secret today.” “Yes, I was born in the woods.” “Then you are not of gentle blood?” “That depends upon what you mean by gentle blood. I am not of Norman blood by my father’s side, although my mother may be, from whom I get my dark features: my father was descended from the old English lords of Michelham, who lived on the island for ages before the Conquest; my mother’s family is unknown to me.” “Indeed! what became of your English forbears?” “Robert de Mortain contrived their ruin, but dearly did his race pay for it in the justice of God. His ghost, or that of his son, still haunts Pevensey: but all that is past and gone. Earl Simon sometimes says (you heard him perhaps the other day) that the English are of as good blood as the Normans, and that he should be proud to call himself an Englishman. “He is worthy of the name,” said Martin, and Hubert smiled; “but it is not that—I want to be a scholar, and by and by a priest.” “The very thing they wanted to make me, and I wouldn’t for the world; what a pity we could not change places. Ah! what is that?” A crushing of brambles and parting of bushes was heard, and lo! a deer, with a little fawn by its side, came across the glade, looking very frightened. The mother was restraining her own speed for the sake of the little one, but every moment got ahead, involuntarily, then stopped, and strove by piteous cries to urge the fawn to do its best. What did it mean? The mystery was soon explained, the deep bay of a hound was heard close behind. Martin’s deep sympathies with the animal creation were aroused at once, and he stood in the opening the deer had made, his short hunting spear in hand. “Take care—what are you about!” cried Hubert. The next instant the deerhound came in sight, and in a few leaps would have attained his prey had not Martin been in the way; but the boy knelt on one knee, presenting his spear full at the dog, who, springing down a bank through the opening, literally impaled itself upon it. “Good heavens!” said Hubert, “to kill a hound, a good hound like this.” “Didn’t you see the poor fawn and its mother? I wasn’t going to let the brute touch them. I would have died first.” Just then the voices of men came from the wood. “See, they follow upon the track of the deer; let us run, we are in for it else.” “I am not ashamed of my deed,” said Martin, “and would sooner face it out; if they are good men they will not blame me.” “They will hang thee, that’s all—fly.” “Too late; you go, leave me to pay the penalty of my own deed, if penalty there be.” “What, forsake a comrade in distress? Nay, I would die first, that is a thing I would die for, but for a brute—never.”