“They are prisoners to green [v]cassocks and black [v]vizors,” answered Wamba. “They all lie tumbled about on the green, like the crab-apples that you shake down to your swine. And I would laugh at it,” added the honest jester, “if I could for weeping.”
He shed tears of unfeigned sorrow.
Gurth’s countenance kindled. “Wamba,” he said, “thou hast a weapon and thy heart was ever stronger than thy brain. We are only two, but a sudden attack from men of resolution might do much. Follow me!”
“Whither, and for what purpose?” asked the jester.
“To rescue Cedric.”
“But you renounced his service just now.”
“That,” said Gurth, “was while he was fortunate. Follow me.”
As the jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his appearance and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of the outlaws who had just assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering baldric across his shoulders, with the rich bugle horn which it supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice and manner, made the jester recognize the archer who had won the prize at the tournament and who was known as Locksley.
“What is the meaning of all this?” the man demanded. “Who are they that rifle and ransom and make prisoners in these forests?”
“You may look at their cassocks close by,” replied Wamba, “and see whether they be thy children’s coats or no, for they are as like thine own as one green pea-pod is like another.”