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CHAPTER XLVI.
A PRISONER.
Art thou he, traitor! that with treason vile
Hast slain my men in this unmanly manner,
And now triumphest in the piteous spoil
Of these poor folk; whose souls with black dishonour
And foul defame do deck thy bloody banner?
The meed whereof shall shortly be thy shame,
And wretched end which still attendeth on her.
With that himself to battle he did frame;
So did his forty yeomen which there with him came.
Some miles to the east of Yeovil there was a deep stream, whose precipitous banks were covered by a thick underwood that almost concealed the turbid waters, which undermined and bared the twisted and gnarled roots of the various overhanging trees or shrubs. The left side of the stream was bounded by an abrupt hill, at the foot of which was a narrow pathway; on the green acclivity flourished a beech grove, whose roots were spread in many directions to catch the soil, while their trunks, some almost horizontal, were all fantastically grown, and the fairy tracery of the foliage shed such soft, mellowed, chequered light as must incline the heart of the wanderer beneath the leafy bower to delicious musings.
Now the moon silvered the trees, and sometimes glimmered on the waters, whose murmurs contended with the wind that sung among the boughs: and was this all? A straggling moonbeam fell on something bright amid the bushes, and a deep voice cried, "Jack of the Wynd, if thou can'st not get to thicker cover, pluck darnels to cover that cursed steel cap of thine."
"Hush!" repeated another lower voice, "your bawling is worse than his head-piece; you outroar the wind. How high the moon is, and our friends not come;—he will be here before them."
"Hark! a bell!"
"Matins, by the Fiend! may he seize that double-tongued knave! I much suspect Master Frion; I know him of old."
"He cannot mar us now, though it be he who made this ambushment."
