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 have changed this grey 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 stript 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 greyfriar'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." "You can speak to no one," replied the knight, "to whom England, and the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me." "I would willingly believe so," said the woodsman, "for never had this country such need to be supported by those who love her.

Hear me, and I will tell thee of an enterprise, in which, if thou be'st really that which thou seemest, thou mayst take an honourable part.

A band of villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have made themselves master of the person of a noble Englishman, called Cedric the Saxon, together with his ward, and his friend Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and have transported them to a castle in this forest, called Torquilstone.

I ask of thee, as a good knight and a good Englishman, wilt thou aid in their rescue ?" "I am bound by my vow to do so," replied the knight; "but I would willingly know who you are, who request my assistance in their behalf ?" "I am," said the forester, "a nameless man; but I am the friend of my country, and of my country's friends--With this account of me you must for the present remain satisfied, the more especially since you yourself desire to continue unknown.