"Hullo, Sir thief! what are you doing there?"
"I am no thief," answered Sten.
"He who steals is a thief," answered the voice. "Come down at once, or you will spend the night in gaol."
Sten thought it belter to descend and try to explain himself. He found himself before a man of authoritative appearance, who was accompanied by a large dog.
"In the first place," said the man, "you have committed an outrage on a fruit-bearing tree; punishment—three marks and forfeiture of the axe—chapter seventeen of the forest laws."
"I thought one had a right to plunder wild trees," said Sten in a shamefaced way, for he had never been addressed in this manner.
"There are no wild trees now, though it was certainly so in Adam and Eve's time. Besides, I was purposely keeping the apples to flavour cabbages with. Secondly, you have cut and extracted the sap from my fine carriage-pole."
"Carriage-pole?"
"Yes, I intended to make a carriage-pole of the birch tree. Then you have peeled off birch bark in a wood that did not belong to you; fine —three shillings, according to the same chapter in King Christopher's land-law."
"I thought I was in God's free world and had a right to support my life," answered Sten mildly.