I think that that spring morning whereon Cedric and I set out on the forest road to Coventry was the fairest that ever I have seen. The sun shone gloriously in the open glades and on the moorlands, and white clouds sailed aloft like racing galleons. The bird chorus among the little new leaves overhead was as the mingled music of harps and lutes and voices in the choir at Shrewsbury, and flowerets of blue and pink and gold full gallantly bedecked the pathside and the brown forest floor. Withal ’twas not a day for idleness and dreaming, for a chill air breathed in the darker vales, and here and there in the deep woodlands and on northern slopes a graying patch of snow yet lingered.

Old William, a faithful archer of Mountjoy, rode with us as guide and counsellor—this by the insistence of my father, Lord Mountjoy, who had a sorry lack of faith in the judgment and discretion of what he called “two half-broke colts” like Cedric and me.

“I know full well,” he had said when I broached the plan of riding the ten leagues to Coventry to pay due respects to our kinsfolk of Montmorency,—“that Cedric hath a wondrous skill and quickness with his cross-bow, and that thou, Dickon, in thy sword-play, art not far behind many a man that calls himself knight and soldier. You will be mounted well; and mayhap, if danger beset, can fight or fly, saving whole skins as on that day the Carletons hunted you in the woods of Teramore. But all is not done by eyes and limbs, be they never so keen and skilled. Your veteran of three-score will step softly and dry-shod around the quagmire in which your hair-brained youth of sixteen plunges head and ears.”

“Never fear, Father,” I cried, “with William or without, we’ll keep whole skins. These are now full quiet days, and we ride for pleasure, not for brawling.”

“’Tis true,” he answered slowly, “with the hanging of Strongbow, we now have the outlaw bands in wholesome fear; and the Carletons have raised no battle cry since the fall. ’Tis like they have little will for it since they were so sorely smitten at the siege and first the Old Wolf and later young Lionel received their just dues from us and ours. They have no leaders now save the widowed lady and a fifteen-years old lad that bears his father’s name of Geoffrey and shall be Lord of Carleton. Mayhap we have before us some few years to build the fortunes of our house without let or hindrance from any of that crew at Teramore. But William shall go with thee to Coventry, ne’ertheless, to see that thou miss not the road and seek no useless brawls. Listen well to what he tells thee, and thou’lt make a safe return.”

Now all three of us had our cross-bows slung upon our backs; and I wore at my side the good Damascus blade which was my dearest pride. We carried in leathern pouches a store of bread and meat for the midday meal; and William had made shift to shoot a moorfowl that he spied running midst the gorse by the wayside.

So, an hour past the noonday, we made camp by a fair stream, set a fire alight to roast the bird, and feasted right merrily. As we sat about the embers, filled with the comfort of hunger well sated, I lifted up my voice in a ballad of which I had many times of late made secret practice. It went right merrily and clear; and when I had once sung it through Cedric and old William both urged me on to repeat it. When I sang again Cedric surprised me much, seeing the untaught forester that he was, by joining me with a sweet, high contra-melody that wondrously enhanced the music; and old William too, after a few gruff trials, did bravely swell the chorus.

Thus pleasantly occupied, and with our carol ringing through the vale, we heard no sound of hoofbeats, and I looked up with a start to see, passing along the path, fifty paces from our camp fire, three armed and mounted travelers.

There were two stout men-at-arms, wearing the braced and quilted jackets that, against arrows or javelins, so well replace breastplates of steel, and armed with great two-handed broadswords and poniards. Between them, and a little to the fore, on a proudly stepping little gelding, rode a youth of somewhat less than our own years, wearing an embroidered tunic of white and rose and a sword which hung in a scabbard rich with gold and gems.

William snatched at the cross-bow which lay on the grass beside him; but the strangers paid little heed to us, the men-at-arms but glancing surlily in our direction. In a moment they had passed from sight, and the forest was quiet again. For a little we talked of who they might be and what their errand was in these parts; but none of us could name any of their party. We were now some eight leagues from Castle Mountjoy and mayhap three from Mannerley Lodge. It seemed not unlikely that the stranger youth might be of some party that visited the good lady of Mannerley, and that he was now riding abroad under the escort of two of her stout retainers.

The passing of the strangers, and the sour looks of the two men had driven the carol from our minds; and we loosed our horses from the saplings to which they had been tied, and soberly remounted to resume our journey. It had been ten of the morning ere we left Mountjoy, and we had come but slowly along the narrow forest paths. Now the sun was well down in the West, and clouds were gathering darkly overhead. William urged us to make haste lest we be caught in the cold rain that he prophesied would be falling ere night. So we took the road again, and, after all our good cheer and merry chorusing, with our spirits strangely adroop.

We rode but slowly, for we had no wish to overtake the travelers. On our woodland roads, ’tis well to beware of strangers, especially when night approaches and one is not yet in sight of friendly castle walls. If they too made for Coventry, ’twas well, and we might follow them into the town without exchanging words; and if their way lay elsewhere, we could willingly spare their company.

A mile or so we rode in quietness. Then, coming to the top of a rise where the path emerged from the woods and half a mile of open moor lay before us, we beheld a sight which caused us to draw rein full suddenly and to gaze again, under sheltering hands, at the place where the road again made into the forest. There were our three strangers in desperate fight with half a dozen men. The outlaws—for such they seemed—were roughly clad in gray homespun and Lincoln green, and armed with bows and quarterstaves. They did swiftly run and dodge from behind one tree-trunk to another, evading the sword strokes of the horsemen and sending shaft after shaft against them. Even as we gazed, an arrow pierced the quilted jacket of one of the men-at-arms, or found a spot uncovered at the throat, and brought him heavily to the ground.

For one quick-throbbing moment I looked at Cedric, to spell, if I might, his thoughts at this juncture. Should we turn back ere the outlaws spied us, and make good our ’scape in the forest? The band might be far larger than it seemed; often a hundred or more of these robbers consorted under the banner of some famous outlaw chief. If we went forward, we might but add to the number of their victims.

Then came the voice of old William, cracked and broken with his fear for our safety, and striving hard to stay us from an emprise which seemed certain death:

“Turn, Masters! Turn ere they sight us. We are too few and too lightly armed to face such numbers. An we go forward, they’ll spit us with their shafts like a roast at the fire. Come, Sir Dickon! Come, I pray thee. My Lord Mountjoy leans upon me to bring thee safe through. Back to the greenwood while yet there’s time.”

I uttered not a word, and firmly held my restive steed; but I saw in Cedric’s face no thought of flight nor care for life or limb,—rather the look of a noble hound that spies the frothing, tusker boar at slaughter of his comrades, and beseeches but the word that looses him against the monster’s flank.

And now Cedric’s horse and mine sprang forward together. To this day I know naught of any settled thought of riding to the attack. Mayhap the limbs that came to me as my heritage from a line of fighting men that never endured to see foul ambush and treachery have their way did move without any guidance and set the spurs against my horse’s sides. Cedric rode the great war-horse which he had won from the Carleton; and though my own mount was a fair tall stallion, half of Arab strain, the forester drew ahead on the rough pathway e’en while he drew his cross-bow cord and fitted bolt to groove. In a moment I had charged my weapon also; and then I found old William by my side, his cross-bow in his hands and all his protests forgotten.

Now the hoofs of our mounts thundered most sweetly on the sward, and for all the folly of our venture, I felt such an uplifting of the heart as I had known but once or twice before in all my life. As we neared the fray at the wood’s edge, I shouted the battle cry of Mountjoy; and, my two companions joining with a will, we came down upon the varlets like a troop of armored horse.

As we approached ’twas clear that the outlaws had all the better of the fight. One of the men-at-arms lay dead on the ground, and the other though still fighting blindly had twice been pierced by arrows in neck and face. The robbers had a chieftain who carried no bow, but a sword only, and who had been ordering and cheering on his men while striking no blow himself. Now the youth in the white tunic, who had received no hurt as yet, dashed toward him and struck full bravely with his golden-hilted sword, but wildly and in a way unskilled. The robber met the blow with a twisting parry that struck the hilt from the boy’s hand and sent the blade whirling away into the underbrush; then leaping forward he seized the youth’s shoulder and pulled him from his horse.

Drawing rein at fifty yards, we all three let fly our bolts, Cedric and old William each bringing down his man. My own bolt flew wide of the robber captain because of my fear of striking the youth who was now his prisoner. Then, dropping the bow, I betook me to a weapon more natural to my temper, and, sword in hand, was instantly in combat with the chief. He pushed the boy behind him and gave me blow for blow; and, truth to tell, he handled his blade—the weapon of a knight and gentleman—with a skill far beyond that of any yeoman I had known. Our blades flashed merrily in the sunlight that now streamed through a rent in the western clouds; and I lost all knowledge of the fray around us.

I fought on horseback, and he on foot; but he gave no inch of ground save to leap from side to side in avoiding my downward strokes. All his thrusts I managed to parry; but, somewhat with swordsmanship and more with wondrous quickness of foot, he likewise foiled mine. Twice had I essayed the best of all my tricks of fence only to fail in reaching my tall and nimble enemy.

I was gathering my wits for another stratagem, the which might take him off his guard, when suddenly, and to my great amaze, he leaped aside from my attack and sprang behind a tree trunk. From there he leaped to another, farther in the forest; and so by running and hiding, quickly disappeared in the greenwood.

I looked about me, dizzied with the quickness of that which had befallen; and beheld a sight for tears and groaning. Both the stranger men-at-arms lay dead on the oak leaves amidst the bodies of five of the outlaws who had been slain by their swords and our cross-bow bolts; and, lying with his shoulders half supported by Cedric’s arms, was our faithful old William, his breast pierced by a cloth-yard shaft and his eyes just closing in death.

Cedric sadly laid down the body of our old retainer; and I thought it fitting to make a hasty prayer for his soul’s peace. Then, as I rose, the stranger youth came forward haltingly. Methought he had a most winsome face, with honest eyes of blue and with brown and curling hair. I was about to offer some friendly greeting when our ears were affrayed by a loud blast of a hunting horn which came from a furlong’s distance in the wood.

Cedric’s face changed instantly; and he grasped at my elbow.

“Quick, Sir Dickon!” he cried. “Let us mount and away. Yon notes are the call of the robber chief to all his band. They’ll be here anon and slay us every one if we make not haste.”

“Come then,” I answered, and, seizing the youth’s hand in lieu of other greeting, I drew him swiftly toward his horse, and mounting my own, wheeled back into the pathway. Cedric, with one bound, was on his horse’s back; but the stranger was slower in his movements, seeming mazed and like one in a dream with the suddenness of these turns of fortune. I caught the bridle rein of his horse which had somewhat strayed; and then indeed he came quickly forward and climbed to the saddle. But a precious moment had been lost; and now, just as we emerged on the moor, there came a deadly flight of arrows from the wood. The archers were yet a hundred paces off; and low-hanging boughs did much deflect their shafts; but my horse was sorely stricken and reared and flung me to the earth. Another arrow struck mortally the stranger boy’s bay gelding, and a third pierced my doublet sleeve and drew a spurt of blood.

“Quick!” shouted Cedric. “Mount with me, both of ye. Quick for your lives!”

Reaching down, he fairly lifted the stranger to a place in front of him, while I seized his belt and madly scrambled up behind. Then the forester set spurs to his horse’s sides, and that splendid steed, despite his triple burden, was off with a bound.

But now, alas! the outlaws were at the wood’s edge. Another flight of arrows whistled about our ears; and the stranger, with a groan, clapped his right hand to his side and tried manfully to pluck away a shaft which was quivering there. His violent clutch served but to break the wood, and left the barb embedded in the flesh. Cedric threw one arm about him, lest he fall, and shouting to me to cling tightly to his waist, spurred madly on, blind to all but the path before him.

The robbers came streaming from the wood, and seeing that our one remaining horse was now burdened with the weight of three riders, dashed after us on foot with the hope, not ill-founded, of overtaking and slaying us. Some of these men of the greenwood can leap and run very like the deer they chase; and, had not our horse been the best and strongest that ever I bestrode, they might have gained upon us on the open heath enough to have made sure work of their archery.

But momently we drew away from them; and none of their whizzing shafts did further harm. Indeed, had not Cedric been fain to check our speed lest our burdened mount stumble in the rough and treacherous pathway, we might have shortly distanced them. As it was, we came again to the forest which we had left a quarter hour before, and the smoother road beneath the oak trees, with the shouting robber band a furlong behind us.

Then for the first time spake the youth that rode so unsteadily before us. Deathly pale he was, and his voice like that of one on a sick-bed.

“Masters,” he murmured, “I fear my hurt is mortal, and you vainly risk your lives for mine. Put me down, I pray you, on the oak leaves, that I may die in peace, and you may ’scape with no more hurt.”

“That we will not,” I cried, hotly. “We’ll bear thee away to safety, spite of all. Look but now! We gain upon them. A quarter hour will see us well beyond their reach.”

“I cannot bear it,” he answered faintly. “I bleed full sorely, and I needs must rest.” With that his color left him utterly; his blue eyes twitched and closed; he fainted, and but for Cedric’s arm must surely have fallen.

Cedric turned to me and whispered:

“Save him we must, or we are no true men.”

“Surely we must save him,” I echoed, “but how shall we compass it? If he have not rest full soon and the dressing of his hurt, he will surely die.”

“One chance there still remains,” he answered softy, “though in the essay we give o’er our own near sight of safety. What say’st thou? Shall we attempt it?”

“With all my heart,” I cried. “Shall we make stand in some rock cranny hereabouts?”

To this the forester made no reply. We were riding down a slope toward a wide but shallow stream which we must ford. The outlaws were hid from view by the rise behind us, but we could still hear their shouts and knew that they had by no means given o’er the hope of reaching us.

Midway in the current Cedric sharply pulled his horse’s head to the right, and leaving the pathway utterly, spurred him at a trot up the sandy and pebbly bed of the stream. A turn soon hid the ford from view, and this not a moment too soon, for now again we heard the outlaws coming down the hill in hot pursuit. Cedric drew rein for an instant, and we heard them splashing through the shallows of the ford, and then their running feet on the path beyond. A bow-shot farther on we drew out from the stream bed and made better going in the open woods of a valley which led upwards toward the rocky hills to the northward.

“Dost know this place?” I asked of Cedric.

“Aye,” he answered shortly, “’tis known as Wolf’s Head Glen.”

Then we came to thicker wood growth; and he had much ado to guide the war-horse safely in the tangle and to keep the boughs from the face of the stricken youth before him. Once more we entered the stream bed, and again emerged where the forest was of older growth and had little underwood to check us. We had come a mile or more from the pathway when of a sudden the forester drew rein and looked with care about him. Then he leaped down, leaving me to hold the wounded boy, and made his way up a rocky slope to a tangle of saplings and thorn bushes. These at one point he drew apart; then he disappeared, crawling on hands and knees into the darkness beyond.

Speedily he returned; and now a glad and hopeful look was on his face. “’Tis well,” he said, “we yet will save him. Here is shelter and safe hiding if I mistake not.”

He lifted down the boy, and together we bore him up the slope and through the narrow, thorny pathway. Beyond was a rocky cave with space enough for half a dozen men to lie on the beds of leaves the winds had drifted in, though nowhere high enough to let one stand erect. The mouth was safely covered by the growth of sapling trees and briers; and one might pass at twenty paces and ne’er suspect it.

We laid our burden on the leaves. The poor youth’s face was so white and still and his hands so cold that truly I thought we were too late and that his spirit had fled. But Cedric stripped away the garments from the lad’s breast and laid his ear against it. Then he rose and nodded brightly.

“He lives. We yet will save him. First let us make ready a bandage, then pluck this shaft away and bind the wound.”

I quickly stripped me of a linen garment of which Cedric did make a soft dressing and shield for the hurt. Then I held the quivering side while Cedric firmly drew away the arrow. As it came forth the boy gave a piteous groan and his eyes flickered open, but quickly closed again. The bleeding started afresh, but the forester, with a wondrous deftness, applied the bandage and closely fastened it with strips that went about the body and over the shoulders of the lad. Then we brought water in an iron cup which Cedric carried at his girdle, and bathed the boy’s white face. Soon his eyes opened once more, and he asked for drink.

When the lad’s thirst was sated and he knew us again, Cedric stole out with cross-bow drawn to make his way a little down the glen and see if any of the robber band had trailed us. Seeing naught of them, he quickly returned and took our good steed and, first giving him to drink at the stream, tethered him in a close thicket half a furlong off where he might browse in quiet and mayhap escape the notice of our enemies.

An hour later we re-dressed our companion’s hurt, using a poultice of healing leaves which Cedric had found by the brookside and crushed between stones. Soon the lad fell asleep, and though sometimes beset with grievous pains and babbling dreams, did rest not ill for one who had been so near to death.

Cedric and I watched the night out, sitting with drawn bows at the cave mouth. The stars were bright, but there was no moon and little wind; and our talk was low lest after all some of the outlaws might be near. Half in whispers he told me the story of the glen and its name. It seems that an honest yeoman, John o’ the Windle, who had been his father’s friend in his youth, had had the mischance to quarrel with a sheriff’s man, and, to save his own life, had pierced him with a cloth-yard shaft. Then John Windle had fled to the forest and become a wolf’s head, which is the name the commonalty have for outlaws, since the killing of either wolves or outlaws may bring a bounty from the Crown. For years he had lived in this very glen, with his hiding place in the cave known to but a few faithful friends. Often he was pursued to the little valley, but among its woods and streams always shook off the sheriff’s trailers and made good his ‘scape. Finally the legend grew that he was befriended by unseen powers and changed himself to a wolf whenever he crossed the little stream at the place where so many times his trail had been lost. Cedric’s father, Elbert of Pelham Wood, had once brought him to this spot to visit the outlaw after he had become old and was far gone in his last sickness; and a few days later the two foresters had buried the wolf’s head near the cave where he had lived.

Just after dawn, Cedric, sitting at watch, pierced with a cross-bow bolt a hare that was hopping through the underwood fifty paces off. Most cautiously we built a little fire within the cave and roasted the meat for our breakfast, we being of sharpest appetites through having eaten naught since the middle of the day before.

Some of the tenderest bits we offered to the stranger, and he did try to eat, but with no avail for he grew dizzy when we raised him from his couch. Cedric’s face grew grave at this, and soon he came and placed his hand upon the cheek and neck of the lad. What he found made him frown most anxiously at me. The face of the wounded youth had now lost all its paleness; ’twas flushed and something swollen and to the touch near burning hot.

“Sir Dickon,” called Cedric, suddenly, “we must move him, and quickly, to where a leech can tend him. He hath a fever, and with it his wound will not heal.”

“Can we issue from this wood by any other road than that on which we left the robbers?” I questioned. “If so be, mayhap we can reach to Mannerley Lodge.”

“There is a steep pathway higher in the glen that doth issue on Wilton Road. If we gain that, ’tis not above two leagues to Mannerley.”

“Then let us go. I wager we meet not again with the outlaws. They ever scatter and hide themselves after a fray like that of yesterday. Our steed must carry three as before. ’Twill be but an hour’s ride.”

Soon Cedric had returned from the thicket with the steed, we had lifted the stranger as gently as might be, and, mounting also, were on our way out of the forest. Now I rode in the saddle and held the boy in his place, and Cedric sat behind me with drawn cross-bow and bolt in groove.

We met none to gainsay us, and soon emerged from the wood. For a quarter hour we made such speed as we might along the road to Mannerley. Then all at once the youth’s body grew limp in my arms, and I saw that again his wound bled full sorely and that once more he yielded to a death-like fainting.

I drew rein, and we dismounted, laying the boy on the leaves by the side of a little brook. For anxious moments we knelt beside him, bathing his forehead with the cold water, listening in vain for his heart-beats, and much in fear that his eyes would never reopen.

Then of a sudden we heard iron-shod hoofs on the roadway and a man’s rough voice in surprise and angry threatening:

“Hold! What have we here? By’r Lady! ’tis the Mountjoys!”

In a twinkling, armed and mounted men were all about us; and with a heart like lead I recognized the Carleton livery. We could neither fight nor fly. Half a dozen stout men-at-arms leaped from their horses and rushed upon us. We had not struck a blow ere they overthrew us and wrenched our weapons from our hands. In a moment more my hands and Cedric’s were fast bound with halters like those of scurvy thieves that go to pay their penalty upon the gibbet.

“Ha! Look but here!” cried the leader, whom I now saw to be none other than the man who had so sworn against us at the trial at Shrewsbury, “these are young Sir Richard and the forester that slew Sir Lionel but six months gone. And now we come on them again red-handed. See this foul wickedness that they have done! What say you now? Shall we not rope them up to yonder limb in requital?”

“Aye, Aye! Let’s hang them and quickly,” cried another.

“Men of Carleton,” said I from where I lay upon the ground, “we are no murderers. But if slay us ye must, let us at least have the death of men and soldiers. I am the heir of a noble house that yields no jot to any Carleton; and my comrade here is a freeman of England with no smirch on his name. ’Tis not fitting that ye visit on us the punishment of thieves.”

“Ho!” jeered the leader, “hear the young hound of Mountjoy, now caught in the sheepfold. ’Tis like if we listen to him that he and this Pelham varlet will yet concoct some plan to ’scape us. Quick, men! the halters! For we have other and sadder work to do.”

Then for a moment all the forest and the blue sky seemed to turn to blackness around me. There was a roaring in my ears like to that I heard when as a child I fell one day from the foot board over the waters of the mill race and came not up to breathe till I reached the other side of the whirlpool below. Then from the midst of this reeling nightmare I heard a voice, saying faintly:

“Oh, Hubert! What dost thou here? And what do ye to these friends of mine that they lie on the ground in bonds?”

The stranger youth was sitting up on his leafy couch. His face was still deadly pale, but his eyes gleamed brightly.

“Our Lady be thanked! He lives,” muttered the leader of the men-at-arms, to my utter amaze doffing his headpiece before the stricken youth. Then in answer:

“Master Geoffrey, God be thanked, they have not murdered thee! But these are Sir Richard of Mountjoy and the forester, Cedric, the very same that did to death thy brother, Lionel. Now we shall swing them from yonder oak limb. ’Twill heal thee faster to see thy enemies thus justly served.”

“Hubert, thou shalt not,—on thy life!” cried Geoffrey, his weak voice shrill with passion, “be they Mountjoys or be they sons of Beelzebub, they are good men and true, and have over and again risked their lives for mine. And I do verily believe that the tale they told at the Shrewsbury trial was the truth, and that my brother brought his death upon himself. Now cut those bonds,—and quickly.”

The soldier yet hesitated and muttered somewhat beneath his breath.

“I tell thee, Hubert,” broke out Geoffrey afresh, “thou shalt loose them, and give them horses that they may ride safely to Mountjoy. If thou disobey me, verily I’ll have thee beaten with rods and cast in the lowest dungeon of Teramore.”

Another of the men-at-arms now spoke aside to Hubert.

“He is the Master, Hubert; and we must e’en obey. Forget not that, since the death of Lionel, young Sir Geoffrey is himself the Carleton.”

Hubert drew his dagger and came toward me. From the look on his ugly face I much misdoubted whether he meant to carry out the commands of his young master or to stab me to the heart. But he quickly cut the rope that bound my wrists, and then did a like service for Cedric.

We stood erect and made our bows before the young Lord of Carleton.

“Sir Geoffrey,” said I, slowly, “thy house and mine have been bitter enemies; but glad am I to call thee friend. Wilt thou clasp hands in token?”

For answer his face lighted up with his most winsome smile, and he extended toward me his right hand in fellowship. To Cedric also he gave a clasp of such heartiness as he could compass, calling him the while brave rescuer and comrade. Then turning again to me, he said:

“Sir Richard of Mountjoy, mount this horse of Hubert’s here, which I freely give thee, while Cedric rides the good steed that bore us so bravely through the forest. My men shall make for me a litter of poles, with robes and garments slung between, and bear me to Mannerley. There will I bide till my wound is healed. Say to thy father, the Lord of Mountjoy, that I renounce all the vengeance that my father and my brother swore against him, and that I extend to him also the hand of friendship. ’Twill please me well if, while I still lie at Mannerley, he and thou and Cedric come riding there and visit me. And so good-by with all my heart. May thou win safely home and Heaven’s blessing follow thee.”

Gladly we mounted and reined our horses’ heads toward home. As we left the little glade we turned for one more look at the pale youth, lying half prostrate on his couch of leaves; and our hearts did swell with gladness to know his life was safe and that no longer was he a stranger or an enemy. And once more we caught his winsome smile and the wave of his hand that bade us God speed.