"A broken head! Tush, 'tis naught! Here, your hand! Canst not lend
a hand to help a man up in your own service?" he added testily, as
stiff and dizzy he sat up and tried to rise. "You might have sent an
arrow to stop his traitorous tongue; but there is no help in you!" he
added, provoked at seeing a certain embarrassment about the youth.
"Desert me at this pinch! It is not like his father's son!" and he
was sinking back, when at sight of the hunter he stumbled eagerly to
his feet, but only to stagger against a tree.

"You are my prisoner!" said the calm deep voice.

"Well and good," said Adam surlily. "But let the lad go free: he is
a yeoman's son, who came but to bear me company."

"And learn thy trade? Goodly lessons in falling unawares on the
King's huntsmen, and sending arrows after them! Fair breeding, in
sooth!" repeated the stranger, standing with his arms crossed upon
his mighty breadth of chest, and looking at Adam with a still, grave,
commanding blue eye, that seemed to pierce him and hold him down, as
it were, and a countenance whose youthfulness and perfect regularity
of feature did but enhance its exceeding severity of expression.
"You know the meed of robbery and murder?"

"A halter and a bough," said Adam readily. "Well and good; but I
tell thee that concerns not the boy--since," he added bitterly, "he
is too meek and tender so much as to lift a hand in his own cause!
He has never crossed the laws."

"I understand you, friend," said the hunter: "he is a valued charge-
-maybe the son of one of the traitor barons. Take my advice--yield