"Ay, even so," answered Chartley. "Thou, hast been like one of the seven sleepers, my friend, and hast dozed, unconscious, while great events were going on around thee. Half the houses on the abbey green have been burned; and there are bands now upon all the great roads of the wood. Does that frighten thee?" "Not a whit," cried the piper. "How should it frighten me? They could but slash the sow's stomach under my arm, or my own; and neither the one nor the other is worth the sharpening of a knife. They'll not harm me; for all your mud-splashing, sheep-stealing, wench-kissing, big-oathed, blaspheming horse troopers are fond of a minstrel; and I will strike up my pipes when I come near the high road, to let them know who I am. It may be a signal to old Boyd too, if he's wandering through the wood, as most likely he is; for, like a ghost, he goes about more by night than by day.--Burned half the houses on the abbey green! That's serious. By my pipes, some necks'll be twisted for it, I think." "I trust there will," answered Chartley; "but now set out upon your errand, my good man, and when next you see me, my message being delivered, claim of me a gold angel; but if you say a word of it to any one else but Boyd himself, when next I see you, you shall have another sort of payment." The piper laughed, and, giving the bag under his arm a squeeze, made his pipes squeak in a very ludicrous manner. Then quitting the hall, with a steadier step than that with which he had entered, he took his way down through the wood which had often been his home during many a warm summer night. Most of the paths were familiar to him; and trudging on, he entered one of the broader ways, which led directly to the high road that divided the forest into two unequal parts. After he had gone on for about half a mile, he heard voices speaking, and paused for an instant to consider. "I will be very drunk," he said to himself. "Drunkenness is often as good a cloak as hypocrisy. All men make their garments out of the skins of beasts, and the smoothest are not always the thickest. Here go I then;" and, assuming a reeling and unsteady step, he blew up the bag of his pipes, and soon, from the various stops, produced a gay wild air, which would have been pretty enough, but for the continued dull squeaking with which it was accompanied. "Ha, who goes there?" cried a voice, a minute or two after, as he emerged upon the road; and two mounted men were immediately by his side. "Sam the piper, Sam the piper," he answered, in drunken accents. "And who are you, jolly boys? What do you keep the king's highway for? Are you looking to see if any man has dropped his purse? If so, I cry shares; for by St. Dominic, there's nothing in mine. Now, marry, if a fat priest were to fall in your way, I would rather be his mule afterwards than before." "Why so, knave?" asked one of the men. "Marry, because he'd ride lighter, I've a notion," replied Sam.