“What is the meaning of all this,” said he, “or who is it that rifle, and ransom, and make prisoners, in these forests?”
“You may look at their cassocks close by,” said Wamba, “and see whether they be thy children’s coats or no—for they are as like thine own, as one green pea-cod is to another.”
“I will learn that presently,” answered Locksley; “and I charge ye, on peril of your lives, not to stir from the place where ye stand, until I have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your masters.—Yet stay, I must render myself as like these men as possible.”
So saying he unbuckled his baldric with the bugle, took a feather from his cap, and gave them to Wamba; then drew a vizard from his pouch, and, repeating his charges to them to stand fast, went to execute his purposes of reconnoitring.
“Shall we stand fast, Gurth?” said Wamba; “or shall we e’en give him leg-bail? In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too much in readiness, to be himself a true man.”
“Let him be the devil,” said Gurth, “an he will. We can be no worse of waiting his return. If he belong to that party, he must already have given them the alarm, and it will avail nothing either to fight or fly. Besides, I have late experience, that errant thieves are not the worst men in the world to have to deal with.”
The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.
“Friend Gurth,” he said, “I have mingled among yon men, and have learnt to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think, no chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their prisoners. For three men to attempt them at this moment, were little else than madness; for they are good men of war, and have, as such, placed sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I trust soon to gather such a force, as may act in defiance of all their precautions; you are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants, of Cedric the Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want English hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me, until I gather more aid.”
So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the jester and the swineherd. It was not consistent with Wamba’s humour to travel long in silence.
“I think,” said he, looking at the baldric and bugle which he still carried, “that I saw the arrow shot which won this gay prize, and that not so long since as Christmas.”