By W. C. WHISTLER
CHAPTER I
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
"F orest-dweller and outlaw I may be, Master Cork," I said; "but I would have you remember that I was an honest man before I was driven here, and an honest man I am still, though I must needs be in hiding for speaking up for the weaker side."
"Honest men don't slay the king's deer," sneered Cork. "It seems to me that you have run into a fair noose by this time, for all your fine talk, seeing that deer-slaying is a hanging matter—for the king is the king, whether you choose to own him or not."
"Hungry men cannot stay to think of that," I answered shortly. But I knew that he was right, and that I must needs, with every honest door closed to me, go on sinking in the mire, as it were.
"Hungry forsooth!" he said. "And gold to be had to-night for the picking up! Come with me, I say, and the forest will know you no longer. Listen! yonder fall more bedizened nobles, with good gold nobles in their purses moreover to prove their nobility!"
I had heard plainly enough. The cold wind of Maytime set from far-off Hexham level to where we were standing under the shadow of Blockhill, and not for the first time that day the heavy sound of cannon came down it, like and yet unlike thunder. There was another battle on hand between the white rose and the red. Margaret of Anjou was making one more struggle, for herself and her son and husband, against Edward of York.
"Outlaw and fallen as I am," I said bitterly, "I will have no share in robbing the dead."