? Warrenton can find me a bow, and I'll fetch yours
from the hall. Here comes a priest; surely he were good mark for us had
we our arrows here! And with him behold a forester of the
King--green-clad and carrying a royal longbow. Do you beg it of him,
master mine, whilst I seek yours. I go."

Young Stuteley hurried across the green, whilst Robin advanced to meet
the Clerk of Copmanhurst and the captain of the King's Foresters. They
were in earnest converse, and clearly had not spied the gay cloak of
Geoffrey Montfichet.

Warrenton, with significant gesture to Robin, began a lecture on the
making and choosing of arrows, as he walked beside his master's guest.

"Are you talking of arrow-making, friend?" asked the forester,
overhearing them. "Now I will tell you the true shape and make of such
shafts as our Will o' th' Green uses," he struck in. "One bare yard are
they in length, and are sealed with red silk, and winged with the
feathers of an eagle."

"Peacock," corrected the clerk, interposing. "You're wrong, Master Ford,
as I will prove. Here is the head of one of Will's bolts, dropped in the
greenwood on the day you rescued us from him. I have kept it in my
pouch, for 'tis a pretty thing." He laughed all over his jolly face.
"Here, Robin, keep it, and learn therefrom how _not_ to make arrows, for
vanity is a sin to be avoided and put on one side. The plainer the barb
the straighter does it fly, as all true bowmen must admit."

He took Robin's hand, soon as the lad had fastened the trophy in his
belt. "I have been bidden to you by the Master of Gamewell. He would
speak with you, Robin; and I do counsel you to give all heed and weight
to his words, and be both prudent and obedient in your answerings to
him."

They moved together towards the hall, whilst Warrenton and the forester
argued still on the matter of winging arrows.

CHAPTER VI

It was Warrenton who brought Master Geoffrey his red-armored steed and
lance, after all; for, although Robin had had a voice in the choosing of
the horse, and had helped the retainer to bind the shaft and interlace
the cuirass and gyres with riband such as the knight had ordered, events
stayed Robin from going out with these appurtenances of war to the
Lady's Bower.

Young Fitzooth had been commanded to his mother's chamber so soon as he
had come out from his converse with the Squire. There befell an anxious
interview, Mistress Fitzooth arguing for and against the Squir