this ballad-maker here."

"Nay," she said, nodding kindly at me, "if this is to be no Crecy,
then may I stop to see, as well as the ballad-maker, since he hath
neither sword nor staff?"

"Sweetling," he said, "get thee home in haste. This play is but
little, yet mightest thou be hurt in it; and trust me the time may
come, sweetheart, when even thou and such as thou shalt hold a sword
or a staff. Ere the moon throws a shadow we shall be back."

She turned away lingering, not without tears on her face, laid the
sheaf of arrows at the foot of the tree, and hastened off through the
orchard. I was going to say something, when Will Green held up his
hand as who would bid us hearken. The noise of the horse-hoofs, after
growing nearer and nearer, had ceased suddenly, and a confused murmur
of voices had taken the place of it.

"Get thee down, and take cover, old lad," said Will Green; "the dance
will soon begin, and ye shall hear the music presently."

Sure enough as I slipped down by the hedge close to which I had been
standing, I heard the harsh twang of the bow-strings, one, two, three,
almost together, from the road, and even the whew of the shafts,
though that was drowned in a moment by a confused but loud and
threatening shout from the other side, and again the bowstrings
clanged, and this time a far-off clash of arms followed, and
therewithal that cry of a strong man that comes without his will, and
is so different from his wonted voice that one has a guess thereby of
the change that death is. Then for a while was almost silence; nor