“Sir Knight,” said he, “wilt thou deign to dismount from thy steed, and partake with us in our woodland cheer? Here,” said he, turning to the people around him, “let more carcases be cut up; there is no lack of provisions. Will it please thee to rest, Sir Knight?”
“I thank thee, good forester, for thy willing hospitality,” said Assueton, alighting, and giving his horse to his squire; “I [[137]]will rest me on that green bank under the holly busket there, and talk with thee to wile away time and beguile my hunger. This is a merry occupation of thine,” added he, after they had sat down together.
“Ay,” replied the forester, “right merry in good sooth, were we left at freedom to enjoy it. But, by the mass, that is not our case here, for there wons in this vicinage a certain discourteous knight, who letteth no one kill a deer on his ground that he may know of; so we be forced to steal hither, at times when we may ween that he is absent, or least on the watch. The red and roe deer do much abound in these glens; and, by the Rood, ’tis hard, methinks, that the four-footed game should be given by nature for man’s food, and that he should be reft of his right to take it.”
“And who may this discourteous knight be?” said Assueton, wishing to feel his way with the stranger.
“His name,” said the forester, “is Sir Miers de Willoughby, of a truth a most cruel and lawless malfaitor, and as bold a Borderer as ever rode through a moss. He rules everything here, and gives honest folks the bit to champ, I promise thee. Would that some such gallant knight as your worship might meet with him and humble him, for verily he is a scourge to the country.”
Sir John Assueton inwardly congratulated himself upon his good luck in having thus so fortunately stumbled on a man, who, having himself suffered from de Willoughby’s oppression, was manifestly so inimical to him: he felt much inclined to speak out at once, but he checked himself, and thought it wiser to proceed with caution.
“Is he so very wicked, then, this Sir Miers de Willoughby of whom thou speakest?” said he to the forester.
“By the mass is he, Sir Knight,” replied the forester. “He will soar ye from his Border-keep like a falcon, and pounce on any prey that may come within his ken; and als he be so stark as to others using his lands for their honest and harmless occupation of hunting, by’r Lady, he minds not on what earth he stoops, if so be that there be anything to cluth from off its surface. ’Twas but some three days ago that he yode hence on some wicked emprise, for ’twas his absence that led us hither; and this morning, as we lay concealed in these wood shaws, we saw him and his men ride by this very spot, bearing home with him some worthy man’s gentle cosset he had stowne away.”
Assueton perfectly understood the forester to have used the [[138]]word cosset—a pet lamb—in a metaphorical sense; but, to draw him on, he pretended to have taken him up literally.
“A cosset!” cried he, with feigned surprise. “A poor pet lamb was but a wretched prey indeed for so rapacious a lorrel as thou wouldst make this same Sir Miers to be, good forester.”