His sword was now out of the sheath in an instant; the weapons of his attendants were not behind, and all four rushed upon the young franklin, exclaiming, "Cut off his ears! The villain has dared to strike a nobleman! Cut off his ears!"
All the villagers scattered back from the object of their fury, except two--Kate Greenly, who cast herself upon her knees before Richard de Ashby, begging him to spare her lover, and Ralph's old grey-headed father, who, running up from the inn door, placed a stout staff in his son's hand, exclaiming, "Well done, Ralph, my boy! Thrash 'em all! Ho! Greenly, give me another stick that I may help him!"
One of the serving-men, however, struck the old franklin with the pummel of his sword, and knocked him down, while the two others pressed forward upon Ralph, and the foremost caught his left arm, just as Richard de Ashby, putting Kate aside, came within arm's-length of him in front, reiterating with fierce vehemence, "Cut off his ears!"
It is probable that the order would have been executed unmercifully, had not a sudden ally appeared upon Ralph Harland's side.
Leaping from the window of the inn, a man clothed in a close-fitting coat, and hose of Lincoln green, with a sword by his side, a narrow buckler on his shoulder, a sheaf of arrows under his left arm, and a leathern bracer just below the bend of the elbow, sprang forward, with a pole some six feet long in his hand, and at three bounds cleared the space between the inn and the disputants. The third leap, which brought him up with them, was scarcely taken, when one blow of his staff struck the man who held Ralph by the left arm to the ground, and a second sent the sword of Richard de Ashby flying far over his head.
At the same moment he exclaimed, looking at the servant whom he had knocked down, "Ha! ha! my old acquaintance; when last we had a fall in yonder inn together, I thought we should meet again! Fair play! fair play!--Not four against one! Get you in, Kate Light-o'-love! out of harm's way! The day may not end so well as it has begun. Fair play, I say, or we may take odds too!"
Richard de Ashby looked round, furiously, after his sword, and laid his hand upon the dagger that hung at his right side; but the sight he saw, as he turned his eyes towards the inn, was one well calculated to moderate, at least, the expression of his rage, for some eight or nine men, all habited alike in close coats of Lincoln green, were coming up at a quick pace from behind the house, and their apparel, and appearance altogether, could leave little doubt that they were companions of him who had first arrived, and in whom he recognised with no slight surprise, the same blue-nosed old peasant whom he had found contending with his servants not many nights before. The hump, indeed, was gone, and the neck was straight enough. All signs of decrepitude, too, had passed away; but the face was not to be mistaken, and Richard de Ashby's countenance fell at the sight.
He was no coward, however; for, amongst the swarm of vices, and follies, and faults, which degraded so many of the Norman nobility of that day, cowardice was rarely, if ever, to be met with. They were a people of the sword, and never unwilling to use it.
His first thought, then, was to resist to the death, if need might be; his next, how to resist to the best advantage. Snatching his sword, then, which one of his servants had picked up, he looked to the clump of trees, but Harland, and the man in green, with a whole host of villagers, whose angry faces betokened him no good, were immediately in the way, so that his only resource seemed to be to retreat to the inn door.
The first step he took in that direction, however, produced a rapid movement on the part of the yeomen, or foresters, or whatever the green-coated gentlemen might be, which cut him off from that place of refuge, and, at the same moment, the voice of Hardy exclaimed, "Stop him from the church path, Much! This rat-trap of ours has too many holes in it, but that will close them all--Now, Master Richard de Ashby, listen to a word or two. You come here with no good purposes to any one, and we want no more of you. But you shall have your choice of three things:--You shall either get to your horse's back, and go away, swearing, as you believe in the blessed Virgin, never to set foot in this place again,--I don't think you dare break that oath,--or--"