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 replied the Black Champion; "and I would not willingly that there were reason to think other. wise of me."

"But for my purpose," said the yeoman, "thou shouldst be as weli a good Englishman as a good knight; for that, which I have to speak of, concerns, indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a true-born native of England."

"You can speak to no one," replied the knight, "to whom England, and the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me."

"I would willingly believe so," said the woodsman, "for never had this country such need to be supported by those who love her. Hear me, and I will tell thee of an enterprize, in which, if thou be'st really that which thou seemest, thou may'st take an honourable part. A band of villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have made themselves master of the person of a noble Englishman, called Cedric the Saxon, together with his daughter and his friend Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and have transported them to a castle in this forest called Torquil-