"And you got it, too, I think," cried the one who had first appeared, now coming out from amongst the bushes. "Why, I never saw or heard anything like that blow of the staff across your shoulders, Jacob. You echoed like an empty cask under a cooper's hammer."
"Ay, Bill," said the man to whom he spoke, "and when the man bestowed upon you the buffet in the eye, and knocked you down, what a squelch was there! Why, it was for all the world as when the scullion, bringing in the kitchen dinner, let the apple pudding fall, and it burst itself upon the pavement."
"I will be even with him," said the man called Bill; "but where's the page and Walter?"
"They galloped off to the castle as they could," answered the third, "and your horse along with them, so you must go back too, and we must ride after the lady as fast as we can go."
"Pretty figures you are to follow her into Nottingham," rejoined Bill; "and what will my lord say when he finds that we four and the page were beaten by five men on foot?"
"There were more than five," replied the other, "I am sure."
"I thought I saw some in the bushes," added the third.
"Come, come," exclaimed Bill, "there were only five, I was disabled by being knocked into the river, otherwise I would have shewn them a different affair."
"I dare say you'd have done wonders," answered the other, with a sneer; "but we must get on, so you go back to the castle as fast as you can."
"Pr'ythee see me beyond those trees," said the yeoman on foot; "if those fellows are hiding there, they may murder me!"