Take your hand from the girl's wrist, you north-country rogue!" "Hold to her, Wat!" said a great black-bearded man-at-arms, whose steel breast-plate glimmered in the dusk.

"Keep your hands from your bodkins, you two, for that was my trade before you were born, and, by God's soul! I will drive a handful of steel through you if you move a finger." "Thank God!" said Alleyne suddenly, as he spied in the lamp-light a shock of blazing red hair which fringed a steel cap high above the heads of the crowd.

"Here is John, and Aylward, too! Help us, comrades, for there is wrong being done to this maid and to the old man." "Hola, mon petit," said the old bowman, pushing his way through the crowd, with the huge forester at his heels.

"What is all this, then?
By the twang of string! I think that you will have some work upon your hands if you are to right all the wrongs that you may see upon this side of the water.

It is not to be thought that a troop of bowmen, with the wine buzzing in their ears, will be as soft-spoken as so many young clerks in an orchard.