The Black Arrow / Черная Стрела. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“Dinner?”

“Ay, sot,” replied the cook, “dinner it is, and a dry dinner, too, with neither ale nor bread. But there is little pleasure in the greenwood now; time was when a good fellow could live here like a mitred abbot, set aside the rain and the white frosts; he had his heart’s desire both of ale and wine. But now are men’s spirits dead; and this John Amend-All, save us and guard us! but a stuffed booby to scare crows withal.”

“Nay,” returned the other, “y’are too set on meat and drinking, Lawless.

“Look ye,” returned the cook, “I have even waited for this good time sith that I was so high. I have been a Grey Friar[27 - Grey Friar – (разг.) монах-францисканец]; I have been a king’s archer; I have been a shipman, and sailed the salt seas; and I have been in greenwood before this, forsooth! and shot the king’s deer. What cometh of it? Naught! I were better to have bided in the cloister. John Abbot availeth more than John Amend-All.

One after another, tall likely fellows began to stroll into the lawn. Each as he came produced a knife and a horn cup, helped himself from the cauldron, and sat down upon the grass to eat. They were very variously equipped and armed; some in rusty smocks, and with nothing but a knife and an old bow; others in the height of forest gallantry, all in Lincoln-green, both hood and jerkin, with dainty peacock arrows in their belts, a horn upon a baldrick, and a sword and dagger at their sides.

There were, perhaps, a score of them already gathered, when a sound of suppressed cheering arose close by among the hawthorns, and immediately after five or six woodmen carrying a stretcher debouched upon the lawn. A tall, lusty fellow, somewhat grizzled, and as brown as a smoked ham, walked before them with an air of some authority, his bow at his back, a bright boar-spear in his hand.

“Lads!” he cried, “good fellows all, and my right merry friends, y’have sung this while on a dry whistle and lived at little ease. But what said I ever? Abide Fortune constantly; she turneth, turneth swift. And lo! here is her little firstling – even that good creature, ale!”

There was a murmur of applause as the bearers set down the stretcher and displayed a goodly cask.