"
"The friar of the bridge," said Little John, "as you very
well know, sheriff, was father Michael of Rubygill Abbey,
and you may easily see that this is not the man."
"I see it," said the sheriff; "and God be thanked for his absence."
Young Gamwell stood at the foot of the ladder. The friar approached him,
opened his book, groaned, turned up the whites of his eyes,
tossed up his arms in the air, and said "Dominus vobiscum."
He then crossed both his hands on his breast under the folds
of his holy robes, and stood a few moments as if in inward prayer.
A deep silence among the attendant crowd accompanied this action
of the friar; interrupted only by the hollow tone of the death-bell,
at long and dreary intervals. Suddenly the friar threw off
his holy robes, and appeared a forester clothed in green,
with a sword in his right hand and a horn in his left.
With the sword he cut the bonds of William Gamwell, who instantly
snatched a sword from one of the sheriff's men; and with the horn
he blew a loud blast, which was answered at once by four bugles
from the quarters of the four winds, and from each quarter came
five-and-twenty bowmen running all on a row.
"Treason! treason!" cried the sheriff. Old Sir Guy sprang to his
son's side, and so did Little John; and the four setting back
to back, kept the sheriff and his men at bay till the bowmen came
within shot and let fly their arrows among the sheriff's men, who,
after a brief resistance, fled in all directions.
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