Will you have them one by one
or all together?" he asked.

"All together; on the turf beside you, if you please. . . Thank
you. . . And do you know, Sir Aymer, I am vastly taken with the short
gown of velvet and sable--you brought it from France, I assume; the
fashion smacks of the Continent. I would like much to have your
opinion as to how it looks on me--we are rather of a size, I take
it--though I shall have to forego the pleasure of the opinion until
another day. . . And now that I can see your doublet, I am enamoured
also of it--will you lend it to me for a little while? Truly, my lord,
I mind never to have seen a handsomer, or one that caught my fancy
more."

De Lacy looked again at the archers and their ready bows.

"St. Denis, fellow," he said, "leave me enough clothes to return to the
castle."

"God forbid," exclaimed the bandit, "that I should put a gallant
gentleman to any such embarrassment--but you must admit it were a shame
to have gown and doublet and yet no bonnet to match them. . ."

The Knight took it off and sent it spinning toward him.

"Note the feather," he said. "It is rarely long and heavy."

"I observed that yesterday," was the merry response.

"Is there anything else about me you care for?" De Lacy asked.

"Nothing--unless you could give me your rarely generous disposition.
Methinks I never met a more obliging gentleman."

The Knight arose. "Then, as I am already overdue at Windsor, I shall
give you good morning."

The archer raised his hand.

"I am sorry, my lord, but we must impose a trifle further on your good
nature and ask you to remain here a while," and he nodded to the man
beside him, who drew a thin rope from his pouch and came forward.

De Lacy started back--the leveled arrows met him on every side.

"You would not bind me!" he exclaimed.

The outlaw bowed again.

"It grieves me to the heart to do it, but we have pressing business
elsewhere and must provide against pursuit. Some one will, I hope,
chance upon you before night. . . Proceed, James--yonder beech will
answer."

The Knight laughed.

"I thank you for the hope," he said--and, throwing his body into the
blow, smashed the rogue with the rope straight on the chin-point, and
leaping over him closed with the leader.

It was done so quickly and in such positions that the others dared not
shoot lest they strike either James or their chief--but the struggle
was only for a moment; for they sprang in a