Lawless the cook was by this time already at his second horn of ale. He raised it, as if to pledge the speaker.

“Master Ellis,” he said, “y’are for vengeance—well it becometh you!—but your poor brother o’ the greenwood, that had never lands to lose nor friends to think upon, looketh rather, for his poor part, to the profit of the thing. He had liever a gold noble and a pottle of canary wine than all the vengeances in purgatory.”

“Lawless,” replied the other, “to reach the Moat House, Sir Daniel must pass the forest. We shall make that passage dearer, pardy, than any battle. Then, when he hath got to earth with such ragged handful as escapeth us—all his great friends fallen and fled away, and none to give him aid—we shall beleaguer that old fox about, and great shall be the fall of him. ’Tis a fat buck; he will make a dinner for us all.”

“Ay,” returned Lawless, “I have eaten many of these dinners beforehand; but the cooking of them is hot work,[61] good Master Ellis. And meanwhile what do we? We make black arrows, we write rhymes, and we drink fair cold water, that discomfortable drink.”

“Y’are untrue, Will Lawless. Ye still s