"Do as I bid you," rejoined the forester. "Say Robert of the Lees: by that name will he know me, from passages in other days; and hark!" he continued--"be sure the Earl of Ashby comes with him, and utter not one word of what that foolish miller just now said."
"I understand--I understand!" cried Blawket, with a much altered manner--"I will do your bidding, Master Robin of the Lees; but this horse eats so wondrous slow."
"He will soon be done," said the forester. "Give him the wine, miller. We have no cups here; take it from the stoup good Blawket, and hand it to your comrades."
A large tankard of wine which had been brought from the hut went round, and then a minute or two passed in silence while the horses finished their corn. When it was done, the four yeomen mounted, and at a word from the forester, the miller led the way before them at a quicker pace, leaving his leader behind with the young franklin.
When they were gone, the forester took a turn backwards and forwards before the hut, without speaking; then pausing, he grasped Harland's. hand, saying, in a tone of stern feeling--"Come, Harland, be a man!"
"You have bad tidings?" asked the young franklin, gazing with painful earnestness in his face. "Tell me, quickly!--the worst blow is past. They are not on the road to Mansfield?"
"There is scarcely a chance!" said Robert of the Lees; "I believe they passed some two hours since, and----"
"And what?" demanded Ralph, in a low, but eager tone. "And Richard of Ashby is at Nottingham, waiting for them."
Ralph Harland cast himself down upon the ground, and hid his eyes upon his hands; while the stout forester stood by, gazing upon him with a look of deep sadness and commiseration, and repeating three times the words, "Poor fellow!"
"Oh, you cannot tell--you cannot tell!" cried Ralph Harland, starting up, and wringing his hand hard; "you cannot tell what it is to have loved as I have loved--to have trusted as I have trusted, and to find that she in whom my whole hopes rested, she whom I believed to be as pure as the first fallen snow, is but a wanton harlot after all. To quit her father's house, voluntarily--to fly with a base stranger--the promised bride of an honest man--to make herself the leman of a knave like that! Oh, it is bitter--bitter--bitter! Worse than the blackest misfortune with which fate can plague me that I can never think of her again but as the paramour of Richard de Ashby! Would I had died first--died, believing that she was good and true!"