His voice stirred Robin strangely; yet he could fit no memory properly to it. The lad was very handsome, slim, dark-haired, and with regular features.
"My name is my own," said Robin to him, "and I do not like your answering of a plain question. Keep a civil tongue in your head, boy, or you will one day be whipped."
"Not by you, forester," cried the page, pulling out a little sword. "Put up your hands, or draw your weapon. You shall have such answering now as you can understand."
He flourished his point valiantly; and Robin saw nothing for it but to draw also. The page thereupon engaged him quite fiercely; but Robin soon perceived that the lad was no great master of the art of fencing.
Still, he played prettily, and to end it Robin allowed himself to be pricked on the hand. "Are you satisfied, fellow?" said the page, seeing the blood rise to the wound.
"Ay, honestly," said Robin, "and now, perhaps, you will grant me the privilege of knowing to whom I owe this scratch?"
"I am Gilbert of Blois," replied the page, with dignity; and again his voice troubled Robin sorely. He was certain that he had met with it before; but this name was strange to his ears.
"What do you in the greenwood at such an hour, good Master Gilbert?"
The lad considered his answer, whilst wiping his sword daintily with a pretty kerchief. The action brought a dim confused memory to Robin—a blurred recollection of that scene discovered in the wizard's crystal troubled his thoughts. Meanwhile the little page had condescended to glance upon him.
"Forester," said he, somewhat awkwardly, "can you tell me—do you know aught of one Robin o' th' Hood? He is believed to have been killed in the fall o' last year, and truly they brought a body into Nottingham. He was a merry youth."