“Then could we not have spared a tithe to help put the town in order?”demanded Mark.

“You have a way, child, of asking the most awkward questions. I can readvery well what was in the provost’s mind, since he spoke it out in full. ButI’m by no means so sure I know what was in the abbot’s, nor that he uttered thehalf of it. A hard man to read!”

Mark had stopped listening. His eyes were on a rider who had just entered atthe gatehouse, and was walking his horse delicately through the moving throngtowards the stables. Three retainers on rough-coated ponies followed at hisheels, one of them with a cross-bow slung at his saddle. In these periloustimes, even here in regions summarily pacified so short a time ago, nogentleman would undertake a longer journey without provision for his owndefence, and an arbalest reaches further than a sword. This young man both worea sword and looked as if he could use it, but he had also brought an archerwith him for security.

It was the master who held Mark’s eyes. He was perhaps a year or two shortof thirty, past the uncertainties of first youth—if, indeed, he had ever sufferedthem—and at his resplendent best. Handsomely appointed, elegantly mounted on aglistening dark bay, he rode with the negligent ease of one accustomed tohorses almost from birth. In the summer heat he had shed his shortriding-cotte, and had it slung over his lap, and rode with his shirt open overa spare, muscular chest, hung with a cross on a golden chain. The body thusdisplayed to view in simple linen shirt and dark hose was long and lissome andproud of its comeliness, and the head that crowned it was bared to the light, asmiling, animated face nicely fashioned about large, commanding dark eyes, andhaloed in a cropped cap of dark gold hair, that would have curled had it beenallowed to grow a little longer. He came and passed, and Mark’s eyes followedhim, at once tranquil and wistful, quite without any shade of envy.