“We’ll have a martial outside!”
This was a good suggestion, and in order to avoid the danger of two high-born and beautiful maidens travelling alone, it was further agreed that Celia should stain her face brown, and attire herself in mean apparel, while Rosalind, who was tall of stature, should for better security, disguise herself as a youth, armed with curtle-axe, and with a boar-spear in her hand.
“Let what fear there will, lie hidden in my woman’s heart,” she said gaily, “at least we’ll have a dashing and a martial outside!”
In their new guise Rosalind declared she would take no worse a name than Jove’s own page—Ganymede; while Celia, in reference to her own banished state, thought that Aliena would be a very suitable name for herself.
“Cousin,” said Rosalind, “what if we tried to steal the clownish fool out of your father’s Court? Would he not be a comfort to us in our travels?”
Celia was delighted with the suggestion.
“Touchstone would go with me all over the wide world,” she said. “Leave me alone to manage him. Now let us go and get our money and jewels together, and devise the fittest time and safest way to hide from the pursuit that will be made when my flight is known. Come! We go contentedly—to liberty, and not to banishment!”
In the Forest of Arden
On reaching home after the wrestling match, Orlando was met by the old retainer, Adam, who implored him to fly at once. The fame of his victory had already reached Oliver’s ears, and he was so incensed at the praises lavished on his brother that he was quite resolved to do away with him by some means or other. The faithful old man went on to say he had five hundred crowns, saved during his service with his late master, and he begged Orlando to take this money, and also to let him go with him as his servant. He was old, he said, but still strong and active, and could serve him as well as a younger man.
Orlando was deeply touched by the fidelity and devotion of this old retainer, and willingly agreed to his request, saying that before the money was spent they would doubtless have found some humble means of support. So the outcasts departed: the young man left the home of his father, and the old man the place where he had spent more than sixty years of faithful service.