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[27]; I have been a kings archer; I have been a shipman, and sailed the salt seas; and I have been in greenwood before this, forsooth! and shot the kings deer. What cometh of it? Naught! I were better to have bided in the cloister. John Abbot availeth more than John Amend-All. Byr 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 cauldron, 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 debouched 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, yhave 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[28] 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, yare 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 liever a gold noble and a pottle of canary wine[29] 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.
Yare 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 fifty from the merchant.
And to-day, said one of the men, I stopped a fat pardoner riding apace for Holywood. Here is his purse.
Ellis counted the contents.
Five-score shillings! he grumbled. Fool, he had more in his sandal, or stitched into his tippet. Yare but a child, Tom Cuckow; ye have lost the fish.
But, for all that, Ellis pocketed the purse with nonchalance. He stood leaning on his boar-spear, and looked round upon the rest. They, in various attitudes, took greedily of the venison pottage, and liberally washed it down with ale. This was a good day; they were in luck; but business pressed, and they were speedy in their eating. The first-comers had by this time even despatched their dinner. Some lay down upon the grass and fell instantly asleep, like boa-constrictors; others talked together, or overhauled their weapons; and one, whose humour was particularly gay, holding forth an ale-horn, began to sing:
Here is no law in good green shaw,
Here is no lack of meat;
Tis merry and quiet, with deer for our diet,
In summer, when all is sweet.
Come winter again, with wind and rain
Come winter, with snow and sleet,
Get home to your places, with hoods on your faces,
And sit by the fire and eat.
All this while the two lads had listened and lain close; only Richard had unslung his crossbow, and held ready in one hand the windac, or grappling-iron that he used to bend it. Otherwise they had not dared to stir; and this scene of forest life had gone on before their eyes like a scene upon a theatre. But now there came a strange interruption. The tall chimney which overtopped the remainder of the ruins rose right above their hiding-place. There came a whistle in the air, and then a sounding smack, and the fragments of a broken arrow fell about their ears. Some one from the upper quarters of the wood, perhaps the very sentinel they saw posted in the fir, had shot an arrow at the chimney-top.
Matcham could not restrain a little cry, which he instantly stifled, and even Dick started with surprise, and dropped the windac from his fingers. But to the fellows on the lawn, this shaft was an expected signal. They were all afoot together, tightening their belts, testing their bow-strings, loosening sword and dagger in the sheath. Ellis held up his hand; his face had suddenly assumed a look of savage energy; the white of his eyes shone in his sun-brown face.
Lads, he said, ye know your places. Let not one mans soul escape you. Appleyard was a whet before a meal[30]; but now we go to table. I have three men whom I will bitterly avenge Harry Shelton, Simon Malmesbury, and striking his broad bosom and Ellis Duckworth, by the mass!
Another man came, red with hurry, through the thorns.
Tis not Sir Daniel! he panted. They are but seven. Is the arrow gone?
It struck but now, replied Ellis.
A murrain! cried the messenger. Methought I heard it whistle. And I go dinnerless!
In the space of a minute, some running, some walking sharply, according as their stations were nearer or farther away, the men of the Black Arrow had all disappeared from the neighbourhood of the ruined house; and the cauldron, and the fire, which was now burning low, and the dead deers carcase on the hawthorn, remained alone to testify they had been there.
Chapter V
Bloody as the Hunter
The lads lay quiet till the last footstep had melted on the wind. Then they arose, and with many an ache, for they were weary with constraint, clambered through the ruins, and recrossed the ditch upon the rafter. Matcham had picked up the windac and went first, Dick following stiffly, with his cross-bow on his arm.