"Ho, ho!" cried the dwarf, as if he had made a discovery, "Ho, ho! I were better away, methinks."
"We did not wish for you, good Tangel," answered Hugh, laughing. "Lead on, however. Where is your master?"
The dwarf again made a sign, waving one of his long arms in the direction of the stairs, and Hugh de Monthermer, after a word or two more to Lucy de Ashby, in a lower tone, quitted the room, and followed the boy down to the same chamber into which the Outlaw had led him on his first arrival. It was now tenanted by two men--the bold forester, and another, who was standing with his back towards the door. At the step of the young lord, however, the latter turned round, displaying the face of the good franklin, Ralph Harland.
Hugh de Monthermer started; for in the short space which had passed since last he saw him on the village green, a change had taken place in his countenance such as nothing but intense grief can work. Indeed, mortal sickness itself but rarely produces so rapid an alteration; he looked like one of those, whom we read of, stricken with the plague of the fourteenth century, where the warning sign of the coming death was read by others in the face and eyes, before the person doomed was at all aware that the malady had even laid the lightest touch upon them. Of poor Ralph Harland, it might indeed be said, as then of those attacked by the pestilence, "the plague was at his heart."
Hugh de Monthermer instantly took him by the hand, exclaiming, "Good Heaven! Ralph, what ails thee? Thou art ill, my good friend--thou art very ill!"
"Sick in mind, my lord, and ill in spirit," replied Ralph Harland, gloomily, "but nothing more."
"Nay, nay, Ralph," exclaimed Hugh de Monthermer, "you must not speak to me so coldly. We have wrestled on the turf in our boyhood, we have galloped together through the woodland in our youth; I have eaten your good father's bread and drank his wine, and rested my head upon the same pillow with yourself--and Hugh de Monthermer must have a brother's answer from Ralph Harland. What is it ails thee, man? On my honour and my knighthood, if my sword, or my voice, or my power can do you service--But I know, I know what it is," he continued, suddenly recollecting the events of the May-day; and though he was not fully aware of the whole, divining more than he actually knew, by combining one fact with another--"I remember now, Ralph; and I know what is the serpent that has stung thee. Alas, Ralph, that is a wound I have no balm to cure!
"There is none for it on earth," replied Ralph Harland.
"Ay," said Robin Hood, "but though there be none to cure, there may be balm to allay, my lord; and yours must be the hand to give it. I will tell you the truth; we hold here a certain fair young lady, whom, as you see, we treat with all respect. You may ask, why we hold her--why we have taken her from her friends? My lord, one of her noble house has taken from a father's care, a child beloved as she can be; has broken bonds asunder which united many a heart together--parent and child, lover and beloved--has made a home desolate, crushed the hopes of an honest spirit, and made a harlot of a once innocent country girl. This is all bad enough, my lord; but still we seek not for revenge. All that we require is, the only slight reparation that can be made by man. Let her be sent back to her home--let her be given up to her father--let her not be kept awhile in gaiety and evil, and then turned an outcast upon the bitter, biting world. You, my lord, must require this at the hands of the Earl of Ashby; he only can do that which is right, and to you we look to induce that noble lord to do justice even to us poor peasants."
Hugh de Monthermer paused for a moment or two in thought ere he replied, but he then answered--"I can bear no compulsory message to the Earl, my good friend. What you have done here is but wild justice; this lady never injured you--her father never injured you. You take her unwilling from her home as a hostage for the return of one who went willingly where she did go--who stays willingly where she now is. If she chooses to stay there, who can send her back again? I can do nothing in this, so long as you keep this lady here. Indeed, I tell you fairly, as you have bound me by my honour not to mention what I have seen, I must e'en remain here, too; for my first act as a knight and a gentleman, when I am at liberty, must be to do my endeavour to set her free."