Johnnie handed the letter back.
"Well?" asked Dorothy.
"I do not think your father will consent; 'tis a perilous journey for a maid."
"Not when three brave gentlemen ride with her."
"I like not the scheme. What is London to home-dwelling forest folk?"
"'Tis the heart of the world," broke in Jeffreys, "and no man can say he knoweth life until he hath felt the pulse-beat of the great city."
"I am woodland bred, good sir, and shrink from the prisonment of streets and walls. Half a day in Gloucester makes me fret like a caged bird."
"A man must see life in its many aspects if he would claim to have lived at all, Master Morgan."
"I do not agree. A man will see deeper into a stream if he sits and watches than will a fellow who splashes noisily about. However, I am bounden to Mistress Dorothy by a hundred acts of kindness that she did me when I lay fevered and with a broken head. If her heart is set upon this jaunt, and her father does not say 'Nay,' I'll to London or anywhere else she wills. Nevertheless, for my own liking, I had rather bide at home."
Dorothy beamed at the forester. "I was half tempted to remind thee that thou didst owe me a mended head. I am glad I did not," she said.