So thus it was. The alderman was very happy in the arrangement, and Giles Headley had not forfeited his rights to be a freeman of London or a member of the Armourers' Guild. He married Aldonza at Michaelmas, and all went well and peacefully in the household. Dennet never quitted her father while he lived; but Stephen struggled through winter roads and floods, and reached Baddesley in time to watch his brother depart in peace, his sorrow and indignation for his master healed by the sense of his martyrdom, and his trust firm and joyful. "If this be, as it is, dying of grief," said Hal Randall, "surely it is a blessed way to die!"
A few winters later Stephen and Dennet left Giles Headley in sole possession of the Dragon, with their second son as an apprentice, while they themselves took up the old forest life as Master and Mistress Birkenholt of Testside, where they lived and died honoured and loved.
THE END.