"Besides, if it comes to the cropping of ears, there are other
folk who may say their say," quoth the third laborer. "We are
all freemen, and I trow that a yeoman's cudgel is as good as a
forester's knife. By St. Anselm! it would be an evil day if we
had to bend to our master's servants as well as to our masters."

"No man is my master save the King," the woodman answered. "Who
is there, save a false traitor, who would refuse to serve the
English king?"

"I know not about the English king," said the man Jenkin. "What
sort of English king is it who cannot lay his tongue to a word of
English? You mind last year when he came down to Malwood, with
his inner marshal and his outer marshal, his justiciar, his
seneschal, and his four and twenty guardsmen. One noontide I was
by Franklin Swinton's gate, when up he rides with a yeoman
pricker at his heels. `Ouvre,' he cried, `ouvre,' or some such
word, making signs for me to open the gate; and then `Merci,' as
though he were adrad of me. And you talk of an English king?"

"I do not marvel at it," cried the Cambrig scholar, speaking in
the high drawling voice which was common among his class. "It is
not a tongue for men of sweet birth and delicate upbringing. It
is a foul, snorting, snarling manner of speech. For myself, I
swear by the learned Polycarp that I have most ease with Hebrew,
and after that perchance with Arabian."

"I will not hear a word said against old King Ned," cried Hordle
John in a voice like a bull. "What if he is fond of a bright eye