Th« forester looked surprised at the eye of fire with which Shakespeare regarded him.
"And wherefore not?" he said.
"Simply," reiterated Shakespeare, "because your putting affront upon me will oblige me to wipe off such rudeness by a blow of my staff."
"Thou art a bold young springald as ever it was my lot to fall in with," said the forester, stepping a pace back and regarding his rival with a scowling look; "and by my fay, for your inches, as likely a young fellow as ere I looked upon, well limbed and clean made as a good bred colt. But I must take this sauciness out of thee. I cannot sing small before so young a champion; come," he continued, "unhand the lass, lest I pluck her from thee, or rather thee from her."
"The maiden seeks her home for a space," said Shakespeare, "and I attend her; after that I will hold converse with thee. Fear not," he whispered to his fair companion, as she shrank back in alarm at the threatening aspect of the forester, "this is but a drunken dissolute fellow, and I shall be able to protect you from his violence, depend on it. Those who threaten loudly are oftentimes but weak in action."
The pair were again about to move off. But the evident aversion of the maiden to the rude forester was indeed gall and wormwood to him, and roused him to stop her progress homeward.
"Nay, Mistress Anne," he said, "you carry it not thus with your gallant; come, I will bring you to your cot myself," and as he said this, he stretched forth his hand, and would have rudely seized her by the arm, but Shakespeare, who had anticipated something of the sort, dealt him so severe a blow over the knuckles with the staff he carried, that the hand fell powerless, and the forester, with a cry of pain, started back for the moment unable to return the blow.
"Make amongst your companions," said the youth, "I must bide this act now, for good or ill. I have struck the first blow."
The controversy had, indeed, already collected several spectators; "A ring, a ring!" they cried. "Here's Black Dick challenged to a bout at quarter-staff by a boy."
"Ha," said Grasp, who had come up amongst others, and now pushed into the circle, "assault and battery here, eh? Keep back, my masters all; keep out of range, lest we get a flout from their cudgels. There'll be smashing work anon, for look you, yonder's my wild slip of a sometime-clerk, John Shakespeare's unthrift son. He's going to catch it this time, and right glad am I therefore. Stand back, Master Dismal, stand back. Ah, there they go at it right merrily."