“Why, hermit,” was the yeoman’s first question as soon as he beheld the knight, “what boon companion hast thou here?”

“A brother of our order,” replied the friar, shaking his head; “we have been at our orisons all night.”

“He is a monk of the church militant, I think,” answered Locksley; “and there be more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar, thou must lay down the rosary and take up the quarter-staff; we shall need every one of our merry-men, whether clerk or layman. But,” he added, taking him a step aside, “art thou mad, to give admittance to a knight thou dost not know? Hast thou forgot our articles?”

“Not know him!” replied the friar boldly; “I know him as well as the beggar knows his dish.”

“And what is his name, then?” demanded Locksley.

“His name,” said the hermit—“his name is Sir Anthony of Scrabelstone—as if I would drink with a man, and did not know his name!”

“Thou hast been drinking more than enough, friar,” said the woodsman, “and, I fear, prating more than enough too.”

“Good yeoman,” said the knight, coming forward, “be not wroth with my merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I would have compelled from him if he had refused it.”

“Thou compel!” said the friar; “wait but till I have changed this gray gown for a green cassock, and if I make not a quarter-staff ring twelve upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good woodsman.”

While he spoke thus, he stripped off his gown, and appeared in a close black buckram doublet and drawers, over which he speedily did on a cassock of green, and hose of the same colour. “I pray thee truss my points,” said he to Wamba, “and thou shalt have a cup of sack for thy labour.”

“Gramercy for thy sack,” said Wamba; “but think’st thou it is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into a sinful forester?”

“Never fear,” said the hermit; “I will but confess the sins of my green cloak to my gray friar’s frock, and all shall be well again.”

“Amen!” answered the Jester; “a broadcloth penitent should have a sackcloth confessor, and your frock may absolve my motley doublet into the bargain.”

So saying, he accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying the endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the doublet were then termed.

While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart, and addressed him thus: “Deny it not, Sir Knight—you are he who decided the victory to the advantage of the English against the strangers on the second day of the tournament at Ashby.”

“And what follows, if you guess truly, good yeoman?” replied the knight.

“I should in that case hold you,” replied the yeoman, “a friend to the weaker party.”

“Such is the duty of a true knight at least,” replied the Black Champion; “and I would not willingly that there were reason to think otherwise of me.”

“But for my purpose,” said the yeoman, “thou shouldst be as well a good Englishman as a good knight; for that which I have to speak of concerns, indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a true-born native of England.”