"You are decided to join our craft, then?" asked Roger. "We are two
woodmen short, as luck will have it."

"I have come to be one, then," replied Manners. "I am disguised for
that alone."

And so it came to pass that John Manners, the nephew of an earl,
whose uncle, even now, was high in favour with the Queen, and who had
himself bowed the knee on more than one occasion before her throne,
had become a woodsman, and joined the foresters of Sir George Vernon.
Love, and love alone, could have induced him to humble himself so
much. It was for love of Dorothy that he turned his back upon the
Royal Court; and now, to win his bride, he was content, nay happy, to
discard his own station in life, and take upon himself the lot of a
common woodsman.

Fortune was indeed leading him by strange paths, but he trusted she
would lead him to the prize at last.

Dorothy's lot, meanwhile, had not been a bright one. Edward Stanley
was relentless, and in answer to her piteous appeals that she loved
him not, he cited the baron's words, referred her to the promise Sir
George had rashly made to Sir Thomas; he declared that he loved her
fervently, and, had it not been for the baron's interference, would
have carried her off at the end of a month and have married her
straightway.

Manners was sternly forbidden her; the gates of Haddon were closed
against him, and even an excuse was found to keep Crowleigh away as
well. It was fondly hoped that these stringent measures would have the