Of The Place of Refuge Within the Green

Now while he spake thus, the archer was busily setting forth the viands upon a rough table that stood hard by, what time Beltane looked about him.

"'Tis a wondrous hiding-place, this, Giles!" quoth he.

"Aye, verily, brother--a sweet place for hunted men such as we. Here be caves and caverns enow to hide an army, and rocky passage-ways, narrow and winding i' the dark, where we four might hold all Black Ivo's powers at bay from now till Gabriel's trump--an we had food enow!"

Quoth Beltane: "'Tis a fair thought that, and I've heard there be many outlaws in the woods hereabouts?"

"Yea, forsooth. And each and every a clapper-claw, a rogue in faith. O very lewd, bloody-minded knaves see ye now, that would have slain me three days agone but for my comrade Walkyn. Scurvy dogs, fit for the halter they be, in faith!"

"Ha!" quoth Beltane, thoughtful of brow. "They be wild men, meseemeth?"

"Desperate knaves, one and all; and look ye, they would have slain--"

"Aye?" nodded Beltane.

"All the off-scourings of town and village--and look ye, they would--"

"Aye," said Beltane.

"Thieves, rogues and murderers, branded felons, runaway serfs and villeins--"

"'Tis well," said Beltane, "so shall they be my comrades henceforth."

"Thy comrades!" stammered the archer, staring in amaze--"thy comrades! These base knaves that would have hanged me--me, that am free-born like my father before me--"

"So, peradventure, Giles, will we make them free men also. Howbeit this day I seek them out--"