"Burst it in, men! Knock it to pieces!"
At which the sergeant and a file of troopers, now also in the porch,
commenced hammering away with the butts of their dragon-muzzled muskets.
But they might as well have attempted to batter down the walls
themselves. Not the slightest impression could they make on the strong
oaken panels. They were about to desist, when something besides that
caused them suddenly to suspend their strokes, Lunsford himself
commanding it. He at the same time sprang down from the porch and back
to his saddle, calling on them to do likewise.
Odd as might seem his abrupt abandonment of the door-breaking design,
there was no mystery in it. A cry sent up by the crowd of people had
given him notice of something new; and that something he now saw in the
shape of four horsemen sweeping round from the rear of the house. These
were also outside the haw-haw, having crossed it by another causeway at
back. A second shout greeted them as they got round to the front, and
drew bridle in the midst of the crowd--a cheer in which new voices
joined; those of the Ruardean men, just arrived upon the ground.
"Foresters?" cried Sir Richard, as they gathered in a ring around him,
"will you allow Ambrose Powell to be plundered--your best friend? And
by Sir John Wintour--your worst enemy?"
"No--never! That we won't?" answered a score of voices.
"Well, the soldiers you see there are Sir John's, from Lydney, though
wearing the King's uniform?"
"We know 'em--too well!"
"Have seen their ugly faces afore."
"Curse Sir John, an' the King too?" were some of the responses showered
back. Then one, delivering himself in less disjointed but equally
ungrammatical phrase, took up the part of spokesman, saying,--
"We've niver had a hour o' peace since Sir John Wintour ha' been head
man o' the Forest. He've robbed us o' our rights that be old as the
Forest itself, keeps on robbin' us; claims the mines, an' the timber,
an' the grazin' as all his own. An' the deer, too! Yes, the deer; the
wild anymals as should belong to everybody free-born o' the Manor o'
Saint Briavel's. I'm that myself, an' stan' up here afore ye all to
make protest agaynst his usurpins."
That the speaker was Rob Wilde might be deduced from allusion to the
deer, pronounced with special emphasis. And he it was.
"We join you in your protest, Rob; an'll stan' by you!" cried one.
"Yes! All of us!" exclaimed another.
"An' we'll help enforce it," came from a third. "If need be, now on the
spot. We only want some 'un as'll show us the way--tell us what to do."
At this all eyes turned on Sir Richard. Though personally a stranger to
most of them, all knew him by name, and something more--knew how he had
declared for Parliament and people, against King and Court, and that it
was no mere private quarrel between him and Sir John Wintour which had
caused him to speak as he had done.
"Theer be the gentleman who'll do all that," said Rob, pointing to the
knight. "The man to help us in gettin' back our rights an' redressin'
our wrong. If he can't, nobody else can. But he can and will. He ha'
told some o' us, as much."
Another huzza hailed this declaration, for they knew Rob spoke with
authority. And their excitement rose to a still higher pitch, when the
knight, responding, said,--
"My brave Foresters! Thanks for the confidence you give me. I know all
your grievances, and am ready to do what I can to help you in righting
them. And it had best begin now, on the spot, as some one has just
said. Are _you_ ready to back me in teaching these usurpers a lesson?"
"Ready! That we be, every man o' us."
"Try us, an' see!"
"Only let's ha' the word from you, sir, an' well fall on 'em at once!"
"We're Foresters; we an't afeerd o' no soldiers--not sich raws as them,
anyhow."
"Enough!" cried the knight, his eyes aglow as with triumph already
achieved; for he now felt assured of it. Over two hundred of the
Foresters against less than a sixth of that number of Lunsford's
hirelings, he had no fear for the result, if fight they must. So, when
he placed himself at their head, with Eustace Trevor by his side, their
two armed attendants behind, and rode up to the gate guarded by the two
troopers, he made no request for these to open it and let them pass in,
but a demand, with sword unsheathed, and at back a forest of pikes to
enforce it.
The guards at once gave way. Had they not, in another instant they
would have been hoisted out of their saddles on the blades of weapons
with shafts ten feet long. Alive to this danger, they briskly abandoned
their post, giving the Foresters free passage through the gate.
During all this time the ex-Lieutenant of the Tower had scarce moved an
inch from the spot where he remounted his horse. When he saw the four
horsemen coming around the house, heard the enthusiastic shout hailing
them, at the same time caught sight of the pikes and barbed halberds,
whose blades of steel gleamed above the heads of the huzzaing crowd, his
heart sank within him. For this brutal monster, "Bloody Lunsford" as he
afterwards came to be called, was craven as cruel. He had swaggered at
the front door as inside the Parliament House by the King's command; but
there was no King at his back now, and his swaggering forsook him on the
instant. He knew something of the character of the Foresters--his raw
recruits knew them better--at a glance saw his troop overmatched, and,
if it came to fighting, would be overpowered. But there was no fight,
either in himself or his following; and all sat in their saddles sullen
and scowling, but cowed-like as wolves just taken in a trap.