The cry of, "Over, over!"
While the friar was singing, Marian was meditating:

and when he had ended she said, "Honest friar, you have misplaced
your tradition, which belongs to the aestuary of a nobler river,

where the damsel was swept away by the rising of the tide,
for which your land-flood is an indifferent substitute.

But the true tradition of this stream I think I myself possess,
and I will narrate it in your own way:

It was a friar of orders free,
A friar of Rubygill:

At the greenwood-tree a vow made he,
But he kept it very ill:

A vow made he of chastity,
But he kept it very ill.

He kept it, perchance, in the conscious shade
Of the bounds of the forest wherein it was made:

But he roamed where he listed, as free as the wind,
And he left his good vow in the forest behind:

For its woods out of sight were his vow out of mind,
With the friar of Rubygill.

In lonely hut himself he shut,
The friar of Rubygill;

Where the ghostly elf absolved himself,
To follow his own good will:

And he had no lack of canary sack,
To keep his conscience still.

And a damsel well knew, when at lonely midnight
It gleamed on the waters, his signal-lamp-light:

"Over! over!" she warbled with nightingale throat,
And the friar sprung forth at the magical note,

And she crossed the dark stream in his trim ferryboat,
With the friar of Rubygill.

"Look you now," said Robin, "if the friar does not blush.
Many strange sights have I seen in my day, but never till this

moment did I see a blushing friar."
"I think," said the friar, "you never saw one that blushed not,

or you saw good canary thrown away. But you are welcome to laugh
if it so please you. None shall laugh in my company, though it

be at my expense, but I will have my share of the merriment.
The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and he that laughs

most has most profit of the performance. The worst thing is good
enough to be laughed at, though it be good for nothing else;

and the best thing, though it be good for something else,
is good for nothing better."

And he struck up a song in praise of laughing and quaffing, without further
adverting to Marian's insinuated accusation; being, perhaps, of opinion,

that it was a subject on which the least said would be the soonest mended.
So passed the night. In the morning a forester came to the friar,

with intelligence that Prince John had been compelled, by the urgency
of his affairs in other quarters, to disembarrass Nottingham Castle

of his royal presence. Our wanderers returned joyfully to their
forest-dominion, being thus relieved from the vicinity of any more

formidable belligerent than their old bruised and beaten enemy
the sheriff of Nottingham.

CHAPTER XVII
Oh! this life

Is nobler than attending for a check,
Richer than doing nothing for a bribe

Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk.--Cymbeline.
So Robin and Marian dwelt and reigned in the forest, ranging the glades

and the greenwoods from the matins of the lark to the vespers
of the nightingale, and administering natural justice according

to Robin's ideas of rectifying the inequalities of human condition:
raising genial dews from the bags of the rich and idle, and returning

them in fertilising showers on the poor and industrious:
an operation which more enlightened statesmen have happily reversed,

to the unspeakable benefit of the community at large.
The light footsteps of Marian were impressed on the morning dew beside

the firmer step of her lover, and they shook its large drops about them
as they cleared themselves a passage through the thick tall fern,

without any fear of catching cold, which was not much in fashion
in the twelfth century. Robin was as hospitable as Cathmor;

for seven men stood on seven paths to call the stranger to his feast.
It is true, he superadded the small improvement of making

the stranger pay for it: than which what could be more generous?
For Cathmor was himself the prime giver of his feast,

whereas Robin was only the agent to a series of strangers,
who provided in turn for the entertainment of their successors;

which is carrying the disinterestedness of hospitality to its acme.
Marian often killed the deer,

Which Scarlet dressed, and Friar Tuck blessed
While Little John wandered in search of a guest.

Robin was very devout, though there was great unity in his religion:
it was exclusively given to our Lady the Virgin, and he never set forth

in a morning till he had said three prayers, and had heard the sweet
voice of his Marian singing a hymn to their mutualpatroness. Each of

his men had, as usual, a patron saint according to his name or taste.
The friar chose a saint for himself, and fixed on Saint Botolph,

whom he euphonised into Saint Bottle, and maintained that he was
that very Panomphic Pantagruelian saint, well known in ancient

France as a femaledivinity, by the name of La Dive Bouteille,
whose oracular monosyllable "Trincq,', is celebrated and under-stood

by all nations, and is expounded by the learned doctor Alcofribas,[6]
who has treated at large on the subject, to signify "drink."

Saint Bottle, then, was the saint of Friar Tuck, who did not yield
even to Robin and Marian in the assiduity of his devotions to his

chosen patron. Such was their summer life, and in their winter caves
they had sufficient furniture, ample provender, store of old wine,

and assuredly no lack of fuel, with joyous music and pleasant discourse
to charm away the season of darkness and storms.

[6] Alcofribas Nasier: an anagram of Francois Rabelais,
and his assumed appellation.

The reader who desires to know more about this oracular divinity,
may consult the said doctor Alcofribas Nasier, who will usher him

into the adytum through the medium of the high priestess Bacbuc.
Many moons had waxed and waned, when on the afternoon of a lovely

summer day a lusty broad-boned knight was riding through the forest
of Sherwood. The sun shone brilliantly on the full green foliage,

and afforded the knight a fine opportunity of observing picturesque
effects, of which it is to be feared he did not avail himself.

But he had not proceeded far, before he had an opportunity of observing
something much more interesting, namely, a fine young outlaw leaning,

in the true Sherwood fashion, with his back against a tree.
The knight was preparing to ask the stranger a question, the answer

to which, if correctly given, would have relieved him from a doubt
that pressed heavily on his mind, as to whether he was in the right

road or the wrong, when the youth prevented the inquiry by saying:
"In God's name, sir knight, you are late to your meals.

My master has tarried dinner for you these three hours."
"I doubt," said the knight, "I am not he you wot of.

I am no where bidden to day and I know none in this vicinage."
"We feared," said the youth, "your memory would be treacherous:

therefore am I stationed here to refresh it."
"Who is your master?" said the knight; "and where does he abide?"

"My master," said the youth, "is called Robin Hood, and he abides hard by."
"And what knows he of me?" said the knight.

"He knows you," answered the youth "as he does every way-faring
knight and friar, by instinct."

"Gramercy," said the knight; "then I understand his bidding:
but how if I say I will not come?"