to a forest man," exclaimed Morgan.

"Ah! thou knowest me. What is thy name?"

"John Morgan, heart and soul at your service!"

"I have heard of thee from my kinsman, and the reports were of an
excellent quality. Come, let me see to thy hurt. We can gossip
afterwards."

Soldiers and huntsmen are usually adepts at rough and ready surgery;
the flow of blood from Morgan's wound was stanched and the injured limb
bound up. Sir Walter inquired how he had so providentially got upon
the track of the spy, and Johnnie poured out the story of his poetic
difficulties. The knight laughed heartily, and offered his help.

"I am a bit of a rhymster, as thou knowest," he said. "What is the
name of the bonny maiden whose eyes have driven thee to verse-making?"

"Mistress Dorothy Dawe," replied the forester a little sheepishly--"a
sweet wench, Sir Walter, as e'er the sun shone upon. And I thought her
name as pretty as her face, but, plague on't, I cannot fix a rhyme to
't."

"And there I sympathize with thee most heartily, Master Morgan. When I
was of thine age and went a-sweethearting, my own fancy lighted upon a
dainty damosel yclept Dorothy, and, like thee, I found the name most
unreasonable in the matter of rhyme and rhythm. Cut it down to
'Dolly,' and that most unkind rhyme 'folly' straightway dings in one's
ears."

"How didst thou surmount the difficulty?"

"How? By keeping the name well in the middle of my line. But there
are a hundred pretty appellations that befit a maiden. Thou canst call
her thy 'sun,' thy 'moon,' thy 'star,' thy 'light, 'life,' 'goddess,'
and so on through a very bookful of terms. Shall I make thee a verse
as we jog along?"

"A thousand thanks! but no. I will stand on mine own footing, or stand
not at all. I will win the wench by mine own parts or merits, or else
wish her joy with a better man. She shall love me decked in mine own
plain russet, not in velvet and laces borrowed from another's wardrobe."

"Valiantly spoken, Master Morgan. I like thy spirit, and, beshrew me,
'twill serve thee better with a sensible maiden than any amount of
pretty speeches and cooing verses. 'Tis a poor man that hath not faith
in himself. In wooing, as in fighting, 'tis the brave heart and the
honest soul that gain the clay; and the quick, strong arm serves the
world better than the glib tongue. But let us get to this business
that brought us together this morning. Thou dost not know my
assailan