"Aye, lord, we mind him!" quoth the three.
"Ye will remember how that we did, within the green, aid him to bury a dead maid, young and fair and tender--yet done to shameful death?"
"Verily master--a noble lady!" growled Walkyn.
"So now do I tell thee that, as she died--snatched out of life by brutal hands--so, at this hour, even as we stand idle here, other maids do suffer and die within Belsaye town. To-day, as we stand here, good Friar Martin lieth within the noisome water-dungeons where rats do frolic--"
"Ha! the pale fox!" growled Walkyn. "Bloody Gui of Allerdale that I do live but to slay one day with Pertolepe the Red--"
"Thou dost remember, Roger, how, within the Keep at Belsaye I sware an oath unto Sir Gui? So now--this very hour--must we march on Belsaye that this my oath may be kept." But here a murmur arose that hummed from rank to rank; heads were shaken and gruff voices spake on this wise:
"Belsaye? 'Tis a long day's march to Belsaye--"
"'Tis a very strong city--very strongly guarded--"
"The walls be high and we have no ladders, or engines for battery and storm--"
"Forsooth, and we have here much booty already--"
"Ha--booty!" cried Beltane, "there spake tall Orson, methinks!"
"Aye," cried another voice, loud and defiant, "and we be no soldiers, master, to march 'gainst walled cities; look'ee. Foresters are we, to live secure and free within the merry greenwood. Is't not so, good fellows?"
"And there spake Jenkyn o' the Ford!" quoth Beltane. "Stand forth Orson, and Jenkyn with thee--so. Now hearken again. Within Belsaye men --aye, and women too! have endured the torment, Orson. To-day, at sundown, a noble man doth burn, Jenkyn."
"Why, look'ee, master," spake Jenkyn, bold-voiced yet blenching from Beltane's unswerving gaze, "look'ee, good master, here is no matter for honest woodsmen, look'ee--"
"Aye," nodded tall Orson, "'tis no matter of ours, so wherefore should us meddle?"
"And ye have swords, I see," quoth Beltane, "and thereto hands wherewith to fight, yet do ye speak, forsooth, of booty, and fain would lie hid secure within the green? So be it! Bring forth the record, Giles, and strike me out the names of Orson and Jenkyn, the which, being shaped like men, are yet no men. Give therefore unto each his share of booty and let him go hence." So saying, Beltane turned and looked upon the close-drawn ranks that murmured and muttered no more. Quoth he: