dy; 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 king's deer. What
cometh of it? Naught! I were better to have bided in the cloister.
John Abbot availeth more than John Amend-All. By 'r Lady! here they
come."

One after another, tall, likely fellows began to stroll into the lawn.
Each as he came produced a knife and a horn cup, helped himself from the
caldron, and sat down upon the grass to eat. They were very variously
equipped and armed; some in rusty smocks, and with nothing but a knife
and an old bow; others in the height of forest gallantry, all in Lincoln
green, both hood and jerkin, with dainty peacock arrows in their belts, a
horn upon a baldrick, and a sword and dagger at their sides. They came
in the silence of hunger, and scarce growled a salutation, but fell
instantly to meat.

There were, perhaps, a score of them already gathered, when a sound of
suppressed cheering arose close by among the hawthorns, and immediately
after five or six woodmen carrying a stretcher debauched upon the lawn.
A tall, lusty fellow, somewhat grizzled, and as brown as a smoked ham,
walked before them with an air of some authority, his bow at his back, a
bright boar-spear in his hand.

"Lads!" he cried, "good fellows all, and my right merry friends, y' have
sung this while on a dry whistle and lived at little ease. But what said
I ever? Abide Fortune constantly; she turneth, turneth swift. And lo!
here is her little firstling--even that good creature, ale!"

There was a murmu