at Saxon Thane,
Athelstane of Coningsburgh?"

"Ay, but he brought him back though, by the blessing of God and Saint
Dunstan."

"How's that?" said a brisk young fellow, dressed in a green cassock
embroidered with gold, and having at his heels a stout lad bearing a
harp upon his back, which betrayed his vocation. The Minstrel seemed
of no vulgar rank; for, besides the splendour of his gaily braidered
doublet, he wore around his neck a silver chain, by which hung the
"wrest", or key, with which he tuned his harp. On his right arm was a
silver plate, which, instead of bearing, as usual, the cognizance or
badge of the baron to whose family he belonged, had barely the word
SHERWOOD engraved upon it.--"How mean you by that?" said the gay
Minstrel, mingling in the conversation of the peasants; "I came to seek
one subject for my rhyme, and, by'r Lady, I were glad to find two."

"It is well avouched," said the elder peasant, "that after Athelstane of
Coningsburgh had been dead four weeks--"

"That is impossible," said the Minstrel; "I saw him in life at the
Passage of Arms at Ashby-de-la-Zouche."

"Dead, however, he was, or else translated," said the younger peasant;
"for I heard the Monks of Saint Edmund's singing the death's hymn for
him; and, moreover, there was a rich death-meal and dole at the Castle
of Coningsburgh, as right was; and thither had I gone, but for Mabel
Parkins, who--"

"Ay, dead was Athelstane," said the old man, shaking his head, "and the
more pity it was, for the old Saxon blood--"

"But, your story, my masters--your story," said the Minstrel, somewhat
impatiently.

"Ay, ay--construe us the story," said a burly Friar, who stood beside
them, leaning on a pole that exhibited an appearance between a pilgrim's
staff and a quarter-staff, and probably acted as either when occasion
served,--"Your story," said the stalwart churchman; "burn not daylight
about it--we have short time to spare."

"An please your reverence," said Dennet, "a drunken priest came to visit
the Sacristan at Saint Edmund's---"

"It does not please my reverence," answered the churchman, "that there
should be such an animal as a drunken priest, or, if there were, that
a layman should so speak him. Be mannerly, my friend, and conclude the
holy man only wrapt in meditation, which makes the head dizzy and foot
unsteady, as if the stomach were filled with new wine--I have felt it
myself."

"Well, then," answered Father Dennet, "a hol