"As long as Windsor Forest endures, Herne the Hunter will haunt
it."
All turned at the exclamation and saw that it proceeded from a tall dark
man, in an archer's garb, standing behind Simon Quanden's chair.
"Thou hast told thy legend fairly enough, good clerk of the kitchen
continued this personage; "but thou art wrong on many material
points."
"I have related the story as it was related to me," said Cutbeard
somewhat nettled at the remark; but perhaps you will set me right
where I have erred."
"It is true that Herne was a keeper in the reign of Richard the Second,"
replied the tall archer. "It is true also that he was expert in all matters
of woodcraft, and that he was in high favour with the king; but he was
bewitched by a lovely damsel, and not by a weird forester. He carried
off a nun and dwelt with her in a cave in the forest where he assembled
his brother keepers, and treated them to the king's venison and the
king's wine.
"A sacreligious villain and a reprobate!" exclaimed Launcelot Rutter.
"His mistress was fair enough, I will warrant her," said Kit Coo.
"She was the very image of this damsel," rejoined the tall archer,
pointing to Mabel, "and fair enough to work his ruin, for it was through
her that the fiend tempted him.
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