A woman was gathering faggots in the wood. As they came nearer she straightened herself and stood, watching them. She was young and tall, grey-eyed, and with braided hair the colour of ripe wheat. “Heron’s daughter,” said Carthew when they had passed. “She should cover her hair like other women with a cap. It is not seemly to wear it so, in braids that shine.” They were presently forth from the forest; before them a stretch of fields no longer well husbanded, a stream murmuring among stones, a bit of orchard, and an old, dilapidated dwelling, better than a farm house, less than a manor house, all crusted with lichen and bunched with ivy. A little removed stood the huge old granary that had given the place its name, but it, too, looked forlorn, ruinous, and empty. “The Oak Grange,” said Carthew. “People say that once it was a great haunt of elves and fairies, and that they are yet seen of moonlight nights, dancing around yonder oak. They dance—but every seven years they pay a tithe of their company to hell.” CHAPTER VI THE MAN WITH THE HAWK ADERHOLD saw no fairies, though sometimes of moonlight nights he pleased his fancy by bringing them in his mind’s eye in a ring around the oak. Hours—days—weeks passed, and still he abode at the Oak Grange. Together he and Master Hardwick had gone over an ancient record. There was the Aderhold line, intertwining with the Hardwick. The blood-tie was not close, but it was there. Back in the reign of the sixth Henry they found a common ancestor in one Gilbertus Aderhold, slain on Bosworth Field. The blood-warmth was between them. Moreover, the old man had turned with a strong liking to this present Aderhold, and besides all there was his fear of illness and death. How well to have a leech always at hand! At last it came to “Will you live here for your roof and keep? I could not give you money—no, no! I have no money to give.” Refuge—security—here in this silent place, behind the great screen of Hawthorn Wood.... Aderhold stayed and was glad to stay, and served the old man well for his keep. The region grew to know that here was old Master Hardwick’s kinsman, brought with him when he came back from London, to live with him and doubtless become his heir. He was a leech. Goodman Cole, living by the forest, fell ill of a racking cough and a burning fever, sent for the doctor at the Grange, was swiftly better, and sang the leech’s praises. As time wore on he began to be sent for here and there, chiefly to poor people’s houses. Eventually he doctored many of such people, now in the village, now in the country roundabout. Few of the well-to-do employed him; they sent to the town for a physician of name. He asked little money for his services; he did not press the poor for payment, and often as not remitted the whole. He earned enough to keep him clad, now and then to purchase him a book.