Other wants, however, arise. The guest becomes clamorous for
supper, observing,

"For certainly, as I you say,
I ne had never so sorry a day,
That I ne had a merry night."

But this indication of his taste for good cheer, joined to the
annunciation of his being a follower of the Court, who had lost
himself at the great hunting-match, cannot induce the niggard
Hermit to produce better fare than bread and cheese, for which
his guest showed little appetite; and "thin drink," which was
even less acceptable. At length the King presses his host on a
point to which he had more than once alluded, without obtaining a
satisfactory reply:

"Then said the King, 'by God's grace,
Thou wert in a merry place,
To shoot should thou here
When the foresters go to rest,
Sometyme thou might have of the best,
All of the wild deer;
I wold hold it for no scathe,
Though thou hadst bow and arrows baith,
Althoff thou best a Frere.'"

The Hermit, in return, expresses his apprehension that his guest
means to drag him into some confession of offence against the
forest laws, which, being betrayed to the King, might cost him