to-night."

"Nay, but you will so," said one of the laborers. "Hi, Dame Eliza, bring
a stoup of your best to Will to clear his throat. Go forward with thy
song, and if our girl-faced clerk does not love it he can take to the
road and go whence he came."

"Nay, but not too last," broke in Hordle John. "There are two words in
this matter. It may be that my little comrade has been over quick in
reproof, he having gone early into the cloisters and seen little of the
rough ways and words of the world. Yet there is truth in what he says,
for, as you know well, the song was not of the cleanest. I shall stand
by him, therefore, and he shall neither be put out on the road, nor
shall his ears be offended indoors."

"Indeed, your high and mighty grace," sneered one of the yeomen, "have
you in sooth so ordained?"

"By the Virgin!" said a second, "I think that you may both chance to
find yourselves upon the road before long."

"And so belabored as to be scarce able to crawl along it," cried a
third.

"Nay, I shall go! I shall go!" said Alleyne hurriedly, as Hordle John
began to slowly roll up his sleeve, and bare an arm like a leg of
mutton. "I would not have you brawl about me."

"Hush! lad," he whispered, "I count them not a fly. They may find they
have more tow on their distaff than they know how to spin. Stand thou
clear and give me space."

Both the foresters and the laborers had risen from their bench, and Dame
Eliza and the travelling doctor had flung themselves between the two
parties with soft words and soothing gestures, when the door of the
"Pied Merlin" was flung violently open, and the attention of the company
was drawn from their own quarrel to the new-comer who had burst so
unceremoniously upon them.

CHAPTER VI. HOW SAMKIN AYLWARD WAGERED HIS FEATHER-BED.

He was a middle-sized man, of most massive and robust build, with an
arching chest and extraordinary breadth of shoulder. His shaven face was
as brown as a hazel-nut, tanned and dried by the weather, with harsh,
well-marked features, which were not improved by a long white scar which
stretched from the corner of his left nostril to the angle of the jaw.
His eyes were bright and searching, with something of menace and of
authority in their quick glitter, and his mouth was firm-set and hard,
as befitted one who was wont to set his face against danger. A straight
sword by his side and a painted long-bow jutting over his shoulder
proclaimed his prof