om the bough of one of the trees. Others were roasting
portions of the carcass of another deer. A few sat apart, some talking,
others busy in making arrows, while a few lay asleep on the greensward.
As Cuthbert entered the clearing several of the party rose to their
feet.

"Ah, Cuthbert," shouted a man of almost gigantic stature, who appeared
to be one of the leaders of the party, "what brings you here, lad, so
early? You are not wont to visit us till even, when you can lay your
crossbow at a stag by moonlight."

"No, no, Cousin Cnut," Cuthbert said, "thou canst not say that I have
ever broken the forest laws, though I have looked on often and often,
while you have done so."

"The abettor is as bad as the thief," laughed Cnut, "and if the
foresters caught us in the act, I wot they would make but little
difference whether it was the shaft of my longbow or the quarrel from
thy crossbow which brought down the quarry. But again, lad, why comest
thou here? for I see by the sweat on your face and by the heaving of
your sides that you have run fast and far."

"I have, Cnut; I have not once stopped for breathing since I left
Erstwood. I have come to warn you of danger. The earl is preparing for a
raid."

Cnut laughed somewhat disdainfully.

"He has raided here before, and I trow has carried off no game. The
landless men of the forest can hold their own against a handful of
Norman knights and retainers in their own home."

"Ay," said Cuthbert, "but this will be no common raid. This morning
bands from all the holds within miles round are riding in, and at least
five hundred men-at-arms are likely to do chase to-day."

"Is it so?" said Cnut, while exclamations of surprise, but not of
apprehension, broke from those standing round. "If that be so, lad, you
have done us good service indeed. With fair warning we can slip through
the fingers of ten times five hundred men, but if they came upon us
unawares, and hemmed us in, it would fare but badly with us, though we
should, I doubt not, give a good account of them before their
battle-axes and maces ended the strife. Have you any idea by which road
they will enter the forest, or what are their intentions?"

"I know not," Cuthbert said; "all that I gathered was that the earl
intended to sweep the forest, and to put an end to the breaches of the
laws, not to say of the rough treatment that his foresters have met with
at your hands. You had best, methinks, be off before Sir Walt