The seamen pushed off and rowed back toward the Rose, but the men stood in a group on the shingle and talked. “The King is at sea.” “Sure enough.” “And the Forest is up.” “So soon!” “A woman as usual! They stabbed young Dale in Gawdy Town, and would have taken his sister. So Falconer raised the Forest. Bland’s men came to beleaguer Woodmere; we ambushed thirty of them last night, so the fat is in the fire.” The man with the deep voice, who seemed to be the leader, betrayed a savage impatience. He had the hard, flat, high-cheeked face of a Mongol, with a brutal mouth, and cold blue eyes. “The devil fly away with all women! Young Dale was a fool to take the wench with him, and Falconer was a fool to trouble his head about her.” “That is not the whole story, Sir Gregory.” “Damn your story! They have rushed matters too rashly. We may have to fight before we are ready. Now for the baggage. Have you any horses above?” “Six.” “Bustle up, then. The sooner we are knee-deep in the Forest the better.” The baggage was carried up the cliff and lashed on the backs of the pack-horses. The men who had landed were well armed under their cloaks. Sir Gregory took the lead, one of the foresters walking beside him. “Now, man, this story of yours; let us hear it.” The forester told all that he knew concerning Mellis and her championing by Martin Valliant. The round-headed man was not pleased. “Beelzebub—what a beginning! A blackguard monk is a pretty stormcock to open the hurly-burly for us. Fools are superstitious, and I am one of the fools.” _Chapter XXXIII_ The Forest had sounded its war-horn, and the woods and heaths and leaf-hidden hamlets gave up their men. They gathered in Woodmere valley, foresters, laborers, charcoal burners, breeders of horses, swineherds, and a scattering of broken men. The gentry and their tenants were passably horsed and harnessed; the foresters had their bows; but there was many a fellow who had no more than an oak cudgel or a scythe blade lashed to a pole. They brought cattle and sheep with them and tumbrils laden with sacks of flour. Booths were built, fires lit, scouts sent to watch the woodland ways and the gray menace of Troy Castle. The vault at Woodmere was emptied of its arms, and a new bridge built in place of Martin’s single beam. As for Martin Valliant, he held aloof from the mesne lords and slept at night across Mellis’s door.