“Amo, amas, amat, see me catch a rat.  Rego, regis, regit, let me sweat a bit.”

“Tace, no more Latin till tomorrow.  Here is a venison pasty from a Woodstock deer, smuggled into the town beneath a load of hay, under the very noses of the watch.”

“Who shot it?”

“Mad Hugh and I.”

“Where did you get the load of hay from?”

“Oh, a farmer’s boy was driving it into town.  We knocked him down, then tied him to a tree.  It didn’t hurt him much, and we left him a walnut for his supper.  Then Hugh put on his smock and other ragtags, and hiding the deer under the hay, drove it straight to the door, and Magog, who loves the smell of venison, took it in, but we made him buy the bulk of the carcase.”

“How much did he give?”

“A rose noble, and a good pie out of the animal into the bargain.”

“And what did you do with the cart?”

“Hugh put on the smock again, and drove it outside the northern gate, past ‘Perilous Hall,’ then gave the horse a cut or two of the whip, and left it to find its way home to Woodstock if it could.”

“A good thing you are here with your necks only their natural length.  The king’s forester would have hung you all three.”

“Only he couldn’t catch us.  We have led him many a dance before now.”

When the reader considers that killing the king’s deer was a hanging matter in those days, he will not think these young Oxonians behind their modern successors in daring, or, as he may call it, foolhardiness.

Martin was hungry, the smell of the pasty was very appetising, and neither he nor any one else said any more until the pie had been divided upon six wooden platters, and all had eaten heartily, washing it down with repeated draughts from a huge silver flagon of canary, one of the heirlooms of Herstmonceux; and afterwards they cleansed their fingers, which they had used instead of forks, in a large central finger glass—­nay, bowl of earthenware.

“More drink, I have a jorum of splendid sack in you cupboard,” cried their host when the flagon was empty.

“Now a song, every one must give a song.

“Hugh, you begin.” 
I love to lurk in the gloom of the wood
Where the lithesome stags are roaming,
And to send a sly shaft just to tickle their ribs
Ere I smuggle them home in the gloaming.

“Just the case with this one we have been eating.  But that measure is slow, let me give you one,” said Ralph.

Come, drink until you drop, my boys,
And if a headache follow,
Why, go to bed and sleep it off,
And drink again tomorrow.

Martin began to fear that the wine was suffocating his conscience in its fumes—­and said: 

“I must go now.”

“We will all go with you.”

“Magog won’t let us out.”

“Yes he will, we will say we are all going to Saint Frideswide’s shrine to say our prayers.”