ometimes broken by screams, and
sometimes by wild strains of distant music. All these sounds, intimating
the disorderly state of the town, crowded with military nobles and
their dissolute attendants, gave Gurth some uneasiness. "The Jewess was
right," he said to himself. "By heaven and St Dunstan, I would I were
safe at my journey's end with all this treasure! Here are such numbers,
I will not say of arrant thieves, but of errant knights and errant
squires, errant monks and errant minstrels, errant jugglers and errant
jesters, that a man with a single merk would be in danger, much more a
poor swineherd with a whole bagful of zecchins. Would I were out of
the shade of these infernal bushes, that I might at least see any of St
Nicholas's clerks before they spring on my shoulders."

Gurth accordingly hastened his pace, in order to gain the open common
to which the lane led, but was not so fortunate as to accomplish his
object. Just as he had attained the upper end of the lane, where the
underwood was thickest, four men sprung upon him, even as his fears
anticipated, two from each side of the road, and seized him so fast,
that resistance, if at first practicable, would have been now too
late.--"Surrender your charge," said one of them; "we are the deliverers
of the commonwealth, who ease every man of his burden."

"You should not ease me of mine so lightly," muttered Gurth, whose
surly honesty could not be tamed even by the pressure of immediate
violence,--"had I it but in my power to give three strokes in its
defence."

"We shall see that presently," said the robber; and, speaking to his
companions, he added, "bring along the knave. I see he would have his
head broken, as well as his purse cut, and so be let blood in two veins
at once."

Gurth was hurried along agreeably to this mandate, and having been
dragged somewhat roughly over the bank, on the left-hand side of the
lane, found himself in a straggling thicket, which lay betwixt it and
the open common. He was compelled to follow his rough conductors into
the very depth of this cover, where they stopt unexpectedly in an
irregular open space, free in a great measure from trees, and on which,
therefore, the beams of the moon fell without much interruption from
boughs and leaves. Here his captors were joined by two other persons,
apparently belonging to the gang. They had short swords by their sides,
and quarter-staves in their hands, and Gurth could now observe that