rick," cried John.

"Aye was it. By my ten finger-bones! it is a trick that will add a
proper man to the ranks of the Company."

"Oh, for that," said the other, "I count it not a fly; for I had
promised myself a good hour ago that I should go with thee, since the
life seems to be a goodly and proper one. Yet I would fain have had the
feather-bed."

"I doubt it not, mon ami," quoth the archer, going back to his tankard.
"Here is to thee, lad, and may we be good comrades to each other! But,
hola! what is it that ails our friend of the wrathful face?"

The unfortunate limner had been sitting up rubbing himself ruefully
and staring about with a vacant gaze, which showed that he knew neither
where he was nor what had occurred to him. Suddenly, however, a flash
of intelligence had come over his sodden features, and he rose and
staggered for the door. "'Ware the ale!" he said in a hoarse whisper,
shaking a warning finger at the company. "Oh, holy Virgin, 'ware the
ale!" and slapping his hands to his injury, he flitted off into the
darkness, amid a shout of laughter, in which the vanquished joined as
merrily as the victor. The remaining forester and the two laborers
were also ready for the road, and the rest of the company turned to the
blankets which Dame Eliza and the maid had laid out for them upon the
floor. Alleyne, weary with the unwonted excitements of the day, was soon
in a deep slumber broken only by fleeting visions of twittering legs,
cursing beggars, black robbers, and the many strange folk whom he had
met at the "Pied Merlin."

CHAPTER VII. HOW THE THREE COMRADES JOURNEYED THROUGH THE WOODLANDS.

At early dawn the country inn was all alive, for it was rare indeed
that an hour of daylight would be wasted at a time when lighting was so
scarce and dear. Indeed, early as it was when Dame Eliza began to stir,
it seemed that others could be earlier still, for the door was ajar,
and the learned student of Cambridge had taken himself off, with a
mind which was too intent upon the high things of antiquity to stoop
to consider the four-pence which he owed for bed and board. It was the
shrill out-cry of the landlady when she found her loss, and the clucking
of the hens, which had streamed in through the open door, that first
broke in upon the slumbers of the tired wayfarers.

Once afoot, it was not long before the company began to disperse. A
sleek mule with red trappings was brought round from some neighboring