"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.