The business-like alacrity with which he caught up his heavy ghisarme (long-handled battle-axe), and stood facing the point where the coming rider would appear, gave an ominous meaning to his words.
Nearer and nearer came the measured tramp, and at last a single rider in full armour, with visor closed, issued from the wall of leaves right in front of the grim watcher.
“Stand!” shouted the latter, with a menacing flourish of his weapon.
But the new-comer, though his short figure looked quite dwarfish beside the giant forester, seemed not a whit dismayed at this rude greeting, or at the grim aspect of his challenger. There was even a tinge of scorn in his voice as he asked—
“Who art thou, to be so bold as bid me stand?”
“I am one,” said the woodsman, with another flourish of his axe, and a growl like a wounded bear, “who will walk the good green wood as I will, and ask no leave of thee!”
“Thou art right, for these woods be none of mine,” laughed the traveller; “but they are not thine either, so I will forth on my way, and ask no leave of thee!”
“Wilt thou? Two words to that bargain,” roared the giant, stung to fury by this quiet scorn. “If thou wilt pass hence, thou must pass over my body.”
“Aha! thou would’st fight me man to man?” cried the stranger, as gleefully as a boy invited to join a cricket-match. “Art thou an outlaw of the wood?”
“I am, and I care not who knows it. I have vowed never to spare knight or noble, wherefore look well to thyself.”