was impossible; they scarce dared to breathe.
Upon the very margin of the ditch, not thirty feet from where they
crouched, an iron caldron bubbled and steamed above a glowing fire; and
close by, in an attitude of listening, as though he had caught some
sound of their clambering among the ruins, a tall, red-faced,
battered-looking man stood poised, an iron spoon in his right hand, a
horn and a formidable dagger at his belt. Plainly this was the singer;
plainly he had been stirring the caldron, when some incautious step
among the lumber had fallen upon his ear. A little farther off, another
man lay slumbering, rolled in a brown cloak, with a butterfly hovering
above his face. All this was in a clearing white with daisies; and at
the extreme verge, a bow, a sheaf of arrows, and part of a deer's
carcase hung upon a flowering hawthorn.

Presently the fellow relaxed from his attitude of attention, raised the
spoon to his mouth, tasted its contents, nodded, and then fell again to
stirring and singing.

"'O, they must need to walk in wood that may not walk in town,'" he
croaked, taking up his song where he had left it.

"O, sir, we walk not here at all an evil thing to do.
But if we meet with the good king's deer to shoot a shaft into."

Still as he sang, he took from time to time another spoonful of the
broth, blew upon it, and tasted it, with all the airs of an experienced
cook. At length, apparently, he judged the mess was ready; for taking
the horn from his girdle, he blew three modulated calls.

The other fellow awoke, rolled over, brushed away the butterfly, and
looked about him.

"How now, brother?" he said. "Dinner?"

"Ay, sot," replied the cook, "dinner it is, and a dry dinner, too, with
neither ale nor bread. But there is little pleasure in the greenwood
now; time was when a good fellow could live here like a mitred abbot,
set aside the rain and the white frosts; he had his heart's desire both
of ale and wine. But now are men's spirits dead; and this John
Amend-All, save us and guard us! but a stuffed booby to scare crows
withal."

"Nay," returned the other, "y'are too set on meat and drinking, Lawless.
Bide ye a bit; the good time cometh."

"Look ye," returned the cook, "I have even waited for this good time
sith that I was so high. I have been a Grey Friar; I have been a king's
archer; I have been a shipman, and sailed the salt seas; and I have been
in greenwood before this, forsooth! and shot the k