As unpleasant a moment as any in the ordinary course of life is when a conversation with the being we love best--one of the few sweet entrancing resting-places of the heart which fate sometimes affords us in the midst of the ocean of cares, anxieties, sorrows, and trifles, that surrounds us on every side--is interrupted suddenly by some one to whom we are wholly indifferent.

The step upon the stairs, and the knock that followed it at the door, were amongst the most ungrateful sounds that could have struck the ear of Hugh de Monthermer and Lucy de Ashby; and there was no slight impatience in the tone of the former, as he said, "Come in!"

The door opened slowly; but, instead of either of Lucy\'s maids or pretty Cicely, who waited upon them, the ape-like face and figure of poor Tangel, the dwarf, appeared, beckoning Hugh out of the room with one of his strange gestures.

"What would you, boy?" said Hugh, without rising from his seat.

"I would have you get upon your walking-sticks," replied Tangel, "and come with me."

"I must first know why," answered Hugh de Monthermer. "Go away, good Tangel; I will come presently."

"Nay, you must come now," said the dwarf. "Robin stays for no man; and Robin and the t\'other fellow sent me for him of the purfled jerkin. He has matter of counsel for thine ear, though well I wot that it is for all the world like sticking a flower in a cock\'s tail."

"I see not the likeness, good Tangel," answered Hugh, slowly rising.

"It will soon fall out again," said Tangel. "Counsel, I mean, Sir Man at Arms. What\'s the wit of giving counsel to a man in a purfled jerkin? But you must come and have it, whether you will or not."

"It must be so, I suppose," answered Hugh. But Lucy held him for a moment by the sleeve, saying, anxiously--

"You will come back, Hugh? You will come back?"

"Think you that I will leave you here now, Lucy?" he asked, with a smile. "No, no, dear Lucy; as I said before, if I take you not with me, I will remain and spend my life in the forest with you."

"Ho, ho!" cried the dwarf, as if he had made a discovery, "Ho, ho! I were better away, methinks."

"We did not wish for you, good Tangel," answered Hugh, laughing. "Lead on, however. Where is your master?"

The dwarf again made a sign, waving one of his long arms in the direction of the stairs, and Hugh de Monthermer, after a word or two more to Lucy de Ashby, in a lower tone, quitted the room, and followed the boy down to the same chamber into which the Outlaw had led him on his first arrival. It was now tenanted by two men--the bold forester, and another, who was standing with his back towards the door. At the step of the young lord, however, the latter turned round, displaying the face of the good franklin, Ralph Harland.

Hugh de Monthermer started; for in the short space which had passed since last he saw him on the village green, a change had taken place in his countenance such as nothing but intense grief can work. Indeed, mortal sickness itself but rarely produces so rapid an alteration; he looked like one of those, whom we read of, stricken with the plague of the fourteenth century, where the warning sign of the coming death was read by others in the face and eyes, before the person doomed was at all aware that the malady had even laid the lightest touch upon them. Of poor Ralph Harland, it might indeed be said, as then of those attacked by the pestilence, "the plague was at his heart."

Hugh de Monthermer instantly took him by the hand, exclaiming, "Good Heaven! Ralph, what ails thee? Thou art ill, my good friend--thou art very ill!"

"Sick in mind, my lord, and ill in spirit," replied Ralph Harland, gloomily, "but nothing more."

"Nay, nay, Ralph," exclaimed Hugh de Monthermer, "you must not speak to me so coldly. We have wrestled on the turf in our boyhood, we have galloped together through the woodland in our youth; I have eaten your good father\'s bread and drank his wine, and rested my head upon the same pillow with yourself--and Hugh de Monthermer must have a brother\'s answer from Ralph Harland. What is it ails thee, man? On my honour and my knighthood, if my sword, or my voice, or my power can do you service--But I know, I know what it is," he continued, suddenly recollecting the events of the May-day; and though he was not fully aware of the whole, divining more than he actually knew, by combining one fact with another--"I remember now, Ralph; and I know what is the serpent that has stung thee. Alas, Ralph, that is a wound I have no balm to cure!

"There is none for it on earth," replied Ralph Harland.

"Ay," said Robin Hood, "but though there be none to cure, there may be balm to allay, my lord; and yours must be the hand to give it. I will tell you the truth; we hold here a certain fair young lady, whom, as you see, we treat with all respect. You may ask, why we hold her--why we have taken her from her friends? My lord, one of her noble house has taken from a father\'s care, a child beloved as she can be; has broken bonds asunder which united many a heart together--parent and child, lover and beloved--has made a home desolate, crushed the hopes of an honest spirit, and made a harlot of a once innocent country girl. This is all bad enough, my lord; but still we seek not for revenge. All that we require is, the only slight reparation that can be made by man. Let her be sent back to her home--let her be given up to her father--let her not be kept awhile in gaiety and evil, and then turned an outcast upon the bitter, biting world. You, my lord, must require this at the hands of the Earl of Ashby; he only can do that which is right, and to you we look to induce that noble lord to do justice even to us poor peasants."

Hugh de Monthermer paused for a moment or two in thought ere he replied, but he then answered--"I can bear no compulsory message to the Earl, my good friend. What you have done here is but wild justice; this lady never injured you--her father never injured you. You take her unwilling from her home as a hostage for the return of one who went willingly where she did go--who stays willingly where she now is. If she chooses to stay there, who can send her back again? I can do nothing in this, so long as you keep this lady here. Indeed, I tell you fairly, as you have bound me by my honour not to mention what I have seen, I must e\'en remain here, too; for my first act as a knight and a gentleman, when I am at liberty, must be to do my endeavour to set her free."

"And as a lover, also," added Robin Hood; "but, my lord, we will spare you a useless trouble; for, let me tell you, that not all the men of Monthermer, and Ashby to boot, would liberate that lady if I chose to hold her. But there is some truth in what you say; and that truth struck me before you uttered it. It was on that account I left you an hour or two ago, and went to seek this much injured young man, to confess to him what I am never ashamed to confess, when it is so, that I have been rash--that I had no right to punish a fair and innocent lady for the fault of a false traitor. To-morrow morning she shall return under your good charge and guidance; but still, my lord, to you I look to demand of the Earl of Ashby that he compel his kinsman both to send back that light-o\'-love, Kate Greenly, to her father\'s house, and to make such poor reparation, in the way of her dowry to a convent, as may at least punish the beggarly knave for the wrong he has committed. I charge you; my lord, as a knight and gentleman, to do this."

"And I will do it," answered Hugh de Monthermer, "since you so willingly set the lady free, whatever be the consequences; and to me they may be bitterer than you think. I will do what you require because my heart tells me it is right, and my oath of chivalry binds me to perform it."

"Ah, my lord!" said Robin Hood, "would the nobles of England but consult the dictates of the ............