“We know ’em—too well!”
“Have seen their ugly faces afore.”
“Curse Sir John, an’ the King too?” were some of the responses showered back. Then one, delivering himself in less disjointed but equally ungrammatical phrase, took up the part of spokesman, saying,—
“We’ve niver had a hour o’ peace since Sir John Wintour ha’ been head man o’ the Forest. He’ve robbed us o’ our rights that be old as the Forest itself, keeps on robbin’ us; claims the mines, an’ the timber, an’ the grazin’ as all his own. An’ the deer, too! Yes, the deer; the wild anymals as should belong to everybody free-born o’ the Manor o’ Saint Briavel’s. I’m that myself, an’ stan’ up here afore ye all to make protest agaynst his usurpins.”
That the speaker was Rob Wilde might be deduced from allusion to the deer, pronounced with special emphasis. And he it was.
“We join you in your protest, Rob; an’ll stan’ by you!” cried one.
“Yes! All of us!” exclaimed another.
“An’ we’ll help enforce it,” came from a third. “If need be, now on the spot. We only want some ’un as’ll show us the way—tell us what to do.”
At this all eyes turned on Sir Richard. Though personally a stranger to most of them, all knew him by name, and something more—knew how he had declared for Parliament and people, against King and Court, and that it was no mere private quarrel between him and Sir John Wintour which had caused him to speak as he had done.
“Theer be the gentleman who’ll do all that,” said Rob, pointing to the knight. “The man to help us in gettin’ back our rights an’ redressin’ our wrong. If he can’t, nobody else can. But he can and will. He ha’ told some o’ us, as much.”