Beside him lay a stout ashen bow and half a score of fair, smooth arrows.
"Halloa!" shouted Will Stutely, when they had come out from the forest into the little open spot.

"Who art thou, fellow, that liest there killing all the green grass with salt water ?" Hearing the voice, the stranger sprang to his feet and; snatching up his bow and fitting a shaft, held himself in readiness for whatever ill might befall him.
"Truly," said one of the yeomen, when they had seen the young stranger's face, "I do know that lad right well.

He is a certain minstrel that I have seen hereabouts more than once.

It was only a week ago I saw him skipping across the hill like a yearling doe.

A fine sight he was then, with a flower at his ear and a cock's plume stuck in his cap; but now, methinks, our cockerel is shorn of his gay feathers." "Pah!" cried Will Stutely, coming up to the stranger, "wipe thine eyes, man! I do hate to see a tall, stout fellow so sniveling like a girl of fourteen over a dead tomtit.