ed, and found within a fair little
hall, with shut-beds out from it on the further side, and kitchen, and
store-bowers at the end; all things duly appointed with plenishing, and
meal and wine; for it was but some three months since one of Jack of the
Tofts' allies, Sir Launcelot a'Green and his wife and two bairns, had
left it till their affair was made straight; whereas he had dwelt there
a whole year, for he had been made an outlaw of Meadham, and was a dear
friend of the said Jack.

"Now," said David smiling, "here is now thy high house and thy castle,
little King Christopher; how doth it like thee?"

"Right well," said Christopher; "and, to say sooth, I would almost that
it were night, or my bones do else, that I might lie naked in a bed."

"Nay, lad," said Gilbert, "make it night now, and we will do all that
needs must be done, while thou liest lazy, as all kings use to do."

"Nay," said Christopher, "I will be more a king than so, for I will do
neither this nor that; I will not work and I will not go to bed, but
will look on, till it is time for me to take to the crooked stick and
the grey-goose wing and seek venison."

"That is better than well," said David; "for I can see by thine eyes,
that are dancing with pleasure, that in three or four days thou wilt be
about the thickets with us."

"Meantime," said Joanna, "thou shalt pay for thy meat and drink by
telling us tales when we come home weary."

"Yea," said Christopher laughing, "that ye may go to sleep before your
time."

So they talked, and were joyous and blithe together, and between them
they made the house trim, and decked it with boughs and blossoms; and
though Christopher told them no tale that night, Joanna and David sang
both; and in a night or two it was Christopher that was the minstrel. So
when the morrow came there began their life of the woodland; but, save
for the changing of the year and the chances of the hunt, the time
passed on from day to day with little change, and it was but seldom that
any man came their way. When Yule was, they locked the house door behind
them and went their ways home to the Tofts; and now of all of these
wayfarers was Christopher by far the hardest and strongest, for his side
had utterly forgotten Simon's knife. At the Tofts they were welcomed
with all triumph, and they were about there in the best of cheer, till
it was wearing toward Candlemas, and then they took occasion of a bright
and sunny day to go back t