Said she: "He was young, but strong beyond measure; and full doughty: true it is that I saw him with mine eyes take and heave up one of our men in his hands and cast him away as a man would a clod of earth."

The Earl knit his brow: "Yea," said he, "and that story I have heard from the men-at-arms also. But what was the man like of aspect?"

She reddened: "He was of a most goodly body," she said, "fair-eyed, and of a face well carven; his speech kind and gentle." And yet more she reddened.

Said the Earl: "Didst thou hear what he was, this man?"

She said: "I deem from his own words that he was but a simple forester."

"Yea," quoth the Earl, "a simple forester? Nay, but a woodman, an outlaw, a waylayer; so say our men, that he fell on them with the cry: A-Tofts! A-Tofts! Hast thou never heard of Jack of the Tofts?"

Said the Earl: "He is the king of these good fellows; and a perilous host they be. Now I fear me, if he be proven to be one of these, there will be a gallows reared for him to- morrow, for as fair and as doughty as he may be."

She turned all pale, and her lips quivered: then she rose up, and fell on her knees before the Earl, and cried out: "O sir, a grace, a grace, I pray thee! Pardon this poor man who was so kind to me!"