er and his
heavily-armed men are here. The forest, large as it is, will scarce hold
you both, and methinks you had best shift your quarters to Langholm
Chase until the storm has passed."

"To Langholm be it, then," said Cnut, "though I love not the place. Sir
John of Wortham is a worse neighbor by far than the earl. Against the
latter we bear no malice, he is a good knight and a fair lord; and could
he free himself of the Norman notions that the birds of the air, and the
beasts of the field, and the fishes of the water, all belong to Normans,
and that we Saxons have no share in them, I should have no quarrel with
him. He grinds not his neighbors, he is content with a fair tithe of the
produce, and as between man and man is a fair judge without favor. The
baron is a fiend incarnate; did he not fear that he would lose by so
doing, he would gladly cut the throats, or burn, or drown, or hang every
Saxon within twenty miles of his hold. He is a disgrace to his order,
and some day, when our band gathers a little stronger, we will burn his
nest about his ears."

"It will be a hard nut to crack," Cuthbert said, laughing. "With such
arms as you have in the forest the enterprise would be something akin to
scaling the skies."

"Ladders and axes will go far, lad, and the Norman men-at-arms have
learned to dread our shafts. But enough of the baron; if we must be his
neighbors for a time, so be it."

"You have heard, my mates," he said, turning to his comrades gathered
around him, "what Cuthbert tells us. Are you of my opinion, that it is
better to move away till the storm is past than to fight against heavy
odds, without much chance of either booty or victory?"

A general chorus proclaimed that the outlaws approved of the proposal
for a move to Langholm Chase. The preparations were simple. Bows were
taken down from the boughs on which they were hanging, quivers slung
across the backs, short cloaks thrown over the shoulders. The deer was
hurriedly dismembered, and the joints fastened to a pole slung on the
shoulders of two of the men. The drinking-cups, some of which were of
silver, looking strangely out of place among the rough horn implements
and platters, were bundled together, carried a short distance and
dropped among some thick bushes for safety; and then the band started
for Wortham.

With a cordial farewell and many thanks to Cuthbert, who declined their
invitations to accompany them, the retreat to Langholm commenced.