With fair warning we can slip through the fingers of ten times 500 men, but if they came upon us unawares, and hemmed us in it would fare but badly with us, though we should, I doubt not give a good account of them before their battle-axes and maces ended the strife.

Have you any idea by which road they will enter the forest, or what are their intentions ?" "I know not," Cuthbert said; "all that I gathered was that the earl intended to sweep the forest, and to put an end to the breaches of the laws, not to say of the rough treatment that his foresters have met with at your hands.

You had best, methinks, be off before Sir Walter and his heavily-armed men are here.

The forest, large as it is, will scarce hold you both, and methinks you had best shift your quarters to Langholm Chase until the storm has passed." "To Langholm be it, then," said Cnut, "though I love not the place.

Sir John of Wortham is a worse neighbour by far than the earl.