clerk nor good woodsman."

While he spoke thus, he stript off his gown, and appeared in a close
black buckram doublet and drawers, over which he speedily did on a
cassock of green, and hose of the same colour. "I pray thee truss my
points," said he to Wamba, "and thou shalt have a cup of sack for thy
labour."

"Gramercy for thy sack," said Wamba; "but think'st thou it is lawful
for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into a sinful
forester?"

"Never fear," said the hermit; "I will but confess the sins of my green
cloak to my greyfriar's frock, and all shall be well again."

"Amen!" answered the Jester; "a broadcloth penitent should have a
sackcloth confessor, and your frock may absolve my motley doublet into
the bargain."

So saying, he accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying the
endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the
doublet were then termed.

While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart,
and addressed him thus:--"Deny it not, Sir Knight--you are he who
decided the victory to the advantage of the English against the
strangers on the second day of the tournament at Ashby."

"And what follows if you guess truly, good yeoman?" replied the knight.

"I should in that case hold you," replied the yeoman, "a friend to the
weaker party."

"Such is the duty of a true knight at least," replied the Black
Champion; "and I would not willingly that there were reason to think
otherwise of me."

"But for my purpose," said the yeoman, "thou shouldst be as well a
good Englishman as a good knight; for that, which I have to speak of,
concerns, indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially
that of a true-born native of England."

"You can speak to no one," replied the knight, "to whom England, and the
life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me."

"I would willingly believe so," said the woodsman, "for never had this
country such need to be supported by those who love her. Hear me, and
I will tell thee of an enterprise, in which, if thou be'st really
that which thou seemest, thou mayst take an honourable part. A band
of villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have made
themselves master of the person of a noble Englishman, called Cedric
the Saxon, together with his ward, and his friend Athelstane of
Coningsburgh, and have transported them to a castle in this forest,
called Torquilstone. I ask of thee,