"Now," said David smiling, "here is now thy high house and thy castle, little King Christopher; how doth it like thee?"
"Right well," said Christopher; "and, to say sooth, I would almost that it were night, or my bones do else, that I might lie naked in a bed."
"Nay, lad," said Gilbert, "make it night now, and we will do all that needs must be done, while thou liest lazy, as all kings use to do."
"Nay," said Christopher, "I will be more a king than so, for I will do neither this nor that; I will not work and I will not go to bed, but will look on, till it is time for me to take to the crooked stick and the grey-goose wing and seek venison."
"That is better than well," said David; "for I can see by thine eyes, that are dancing with pleasure, that in three or four days thou wilt be about the thickets with us."
"Meantime," said Joanna, "thou shalt pay for thy meat and drink by telling us tales when we come home weary."
"Yea," said Christopher laughing, "that ye may go to sleep before your time."
So they talked, and were joyous and blithe together, and between them they made the house trim, and decked it with boughs and blossoms; and though Christopher told them no tale that night, Joanna and David sang both; and in a night or two it was Christopher that was the minstrel. So when the morrow came there began their life of the woodland; but, save for the changing of the year and the chances of the hunt, the time passed on from day to day with little change, and it was but seldom that any man came their way. When Yule was, they locked the house door behind them and went their ways home to the Tofts; and now of all of these wayfarers was Christopher by far the hardest and strongest, for his side had utterly forgotten Simon's knife. At the Tofts they were welcomed with all triumph, and they were about there in the best of cheer, till it was wearing toward Candlemas, and then they took occasion of a bright and sunny day to go back to Littledale once more, and there they abode till spring was come and was wearing into summer, and messages had come and gone betwixt them and the Tofts, and it was agreed that with the first of autumn they should go back to the Tofts and see what should betide.
But now leave we Christopher and these good fellows of the Tofts and turn to Goldilind, who is yet dwelling amid no very happy days in the Castle of Greenharbour, on the northernmost marches of Meadham.