. "As long as Windsor Forest endures, Herne the Hunter will haunt
it."

All turned at the exclamation and saw that it proceeded from a tall dark
man, in an archer's garb, standing behind Simon Quanden's chair.

"Thou hast told thy legend fairly enough, good clerk of the kitchen,"
continued this personage; "but thou art wrong on many material points."

"I have related the story as it was related to me," said Cutbeard
somewhat nettled at the remark; "but perhaps you will set me right where
I have erred."

"It is true that Herne was a keeper in the reign of Richard the Second,"
replied the tall archer. "It is true also that he was expert in all
matters of woodcraft, and that he was in high favour with the king; but
he was bewitched by a lovely damsel, and not by a weird forester. He
carried off a nun and dwelt with her in a cave in the forest where he
assembled his brother keepers, and treated them to the king's venison
and the king's wine.

"A sacreligious villain and a reprobate!" exclaimed Launcelot Rutter.

"His mistress was fair enough, I will warrant her," said Kit Coo.

"She was the very image of this damsel," rejoined the tall archer,
pointing to Mabel, "and fair enough to work his ruin, for it was through
her that the fiend tempted him. The charms that proved his undoing were
fatal to her also, for in a fit of jealousy he slew her. The remorse
occasioned by this deed made him destroy himself."

"Well, your version of the legend may be the correct one, for aught I
know, worthy sir," said Cutbeard; "but I see not that it accounts for
Herne's antlers so well as mine, unless he were wedded to the nun, who
you say played him false. But how came you to know she resembled Mabel
Lyndwood?"

"Ay, I was thinking of that myself," said Simon Quanden. "How do you
know that, master?"

"Because I have seen her picture," replied the tall archer.

"Painted by Satan's chief limner, I suppose?" rejoined Cutbeard.

"He who painted it had seen her," replied the tall archer sternly. "But,
as I have said, it was the very image of this damsel."

And as he uttered the words, he quitted the kitchen.

"Who is that archer?" demanded Cutbeard, looking after him. But no one
could answer the question, nor could any one tell when he had entered
the kitchen.

"Strange!" exclaimed Simon Quanden, crossing himself. "Have you ever
seen him before, Mabel?"

"I almost think I have," she replied, with a slight shudder.

"I half susp