ll, 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 murmur of applause as the bearers set down the stretcher and
displayed a goodly cask.

"And now haste ye, boys," the man continued. "There is work toward. A
handful of archers are but now come to the ferry; murrey and blue is
their wear; they are our butts--they shall all taste arrows--no man of
them shall struggle through this wood. For, lads, we are here some fifty
strong, each man of us most foully wronged; for some they have lost
lands, and some friends; and some they have been outlawed--all
oppressed! Who, then, hath done this evil? Sir Daniel, by the rood!
Shall he then profit? shall he sit snug in our houses? shall he till our
fields? shall he suck the bone he robbed us of? I trow not. He getteth
him strength at law; he gaineth cases; nay, there is one case he shall
not gain--I have a writ here at my belt that, please the saints, shall
conquer him."

Lawless the cook was by this time already at his second horn of ale. He
raised it, as if to pledge the speaker.

"Master Ellis," he said, "y' are for vengeance--well it becometh
you!--but your poor brother o' the greenwood that had never lands to
lose nor friends to think upon, looketh rather, for his poor part, to
the profit of the thing. He had liefer a gold noble and a pottle of
canary wine than all the vengeances in purgatory."

"Lawless," replied the other, "to reach the Moat House, Sir Daniel must
pass the forest. We shall make that passage dearer, pardy, than any
battle. Then, when he has got to earth with such ragged handful as
escapeth us--all his great friends fallen and fled away, and none to
give him aid--we shall beleaguer that old fox about, and great shall be
the fall of him. 'Tis a fat buck; he will make a dinner for us all."

"Ay," returned Lawless, "I have eaten many of these dinners beforehand;
but the cooking of them is hot work, good Master Ellis. And meanwhile
what do we? We make black arrows, we write rhymes, and we drink fair
cold water, that discomfortable drink."

"Y' are untrue, Will Lawless. Ye still smell of the Grey Friars'
buttery; greed is your undoing," answered Ellis. "We took twenty pounds
from Appleyard. We took seven marks from the messenger last night. A day
ago we had