they walked in single file; the friar singing and pioneering in the van,

the horse plunging and floundering behind the friar, the lady following
"in maidenmeditation fancy free," and the knight bringing up the rear,

much marvelling at the strange company into which his stars had thrown him.
Their path had expanded sufficiently to allow the knight to take Marian's

hand again, when they arrived in the august presence of Robin Hood
and his court.

Robin's table was spread under a high overarching canopy of living boughs,
on the edge of a natural lawn of verdure starred with flowers,

through which a swift transparentrivulet ran sparkling in the sun.
The board was covered with abundance of choice food and excellent liquor,

not without the comeliness of snow-white linen and the splendour
of costly plate, which the sheriff of Nottingham had unwillingly

contributed to supply, at the same time with an excellent cook,
whom Little John's art had spirited away to the forest with the contents

of his master's silver scullery.
An hundred foresters were here assembled over-ready for their dinner,

some seated at the table and some lying in groups under the trees.
Robin bade courteouswelcome to the knight, who took his seat between

Robin and Marian at the festal board; at which was already placed
one strange guest in the person of a portly monk, sitting between

Little John and Scarlet, with, his rotund physiognomy elongated
into an unnatural oval by the conjoint influence of sorrow and fear:

sorrow for the departedcontents of his travelling treasury, a good-looking
valise which was hanging empty on a bough; and fear for his personal safety,

of which all the flasks and pasties before him could not give him assurance.
The appearance of the knight, however, cheered him up with a semblance

of protection, and gave him just sufficient courage to demolish a cygnet
and a rumble-pie, which he diluted with the contents of two flasks

of canary sack.
But wine, which sometimes creates and often increases joy, doth also,

upon occasion, heighten sorrow: and so it fared now with our portly monk,
who had no sooner explained away his portion of provender, than he began

to weep and bewail himself bitterly.
"Why dost thou weep, man?" said Robin Hood. "Thou hast done

thine embassyjustly, and shalt have thy Lady's grace."
"Alack! alack!" said the monk: "no embassy had I, luckless sinner,

as well thou wottest, but to take to my abbey in safety the treasure
whereof thou hast despoiled me."

"Propound me his case," said Friar Tuck, "and I will give
him ghostly counsel."

"You well remember," said Robin Hood, "the sorrowfulknight who dined
with us here twelve months and a day gone by."

"Well do I," said Friar Tuck. "His lands were in jeopardy with a
certain abbot, who would allow him no longer day for their redemption.

Whereupon you lent to him the four hundred pounds which he needed,
and which he was to repay this day, though he had no better security

to give than our Lady the Virgin."
"I never desired better," said Robin, "for she never yet failed

to send me my pay; and here is one of her own flock, this faithful and
well-favoured monk of St. Mary's, hath brought it me duly, principal and

interest to a penny, as Little John can testify, who told it forth.
To be sure, he denied having it, but that was to prove our faith.

We sought and found it."
"I know nothing of your knight," said the monk: "and the money was our own,

as the Virgin shall bless me."
"She shall bless thee," said Friar Tuck, "for a faithfulmessenger."

The monk resumed his wailing. Little John brought him his horse.
Robin gave him leave to depart. He sprang with singular nimbleness

into the saddle, and vanished without saying, God give you good day.
The stranger knight laughed heartily as the monk rode off.

"They say, sir knight," said Friar Tuck, "they should laugh who win:
but thou laughest who art likely to lose."

"I have won," said the knight, "a good dinner, some mirth,
and some knowledge: and I cannot lose by paying for them."

"Bravely said," answered Robin. "Still it becomes thee to pay:
for it is not meet that a poor forester should treat a rich knight.

How much money hast thou with thee?"
"Troth, I know not," said the knight. "Sometimes much, sometimes little,

sometimes none. But search, and what thou findest, keep:
and for the sake of thy kind heart and open hand, be it what it may,

I shall wish it were more."
"Then, since thou sayest so," said Robin, "not a penny will I touch.

Many a false churl comes hither, and disburses against his will:
and till there is lack of these, I prey not on true men."

"Thou art thyself a true man, right well I judge, Robin,"
said the stranger knight, "and seemest more like one bred

in court than to thy present outlaw life."
"Our life," said the friar, "is a craft, an art, and a mystery.

How much of it, think you, could be learned at court?"
"Indeed, I cannot say," said the stranger knight:

"but I should apprehend very little."
"And so should I," said the friar: "for we should find very little of our

bold open practice, but should hear abundance of praise of our principles.
To live in seemingfellowship and secret rivalry; to have a hand for all,

and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, and nobody's friend;
to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and to dread the secret

stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honours and despoil
fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping in darkness:

these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'r Lady,
have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his throat

to the praise of your court-hero, then come our principles into play:
then is our practice extolled not by the same name, for their Richard

is a hero, and our Robin is a thief: marry, your hero guts an exchequer,
while your thief disembowels a portmanteau, your hero sacks a city,

while your thief sacks a cellar: your hero marauds on a larger scale,
and that is all the difference, for the principle and the virtue are one:

but two of a trade cannot agree: therefore your hero makes laws to get
rid of your thief, and gives him an ill name that he may hang him:

for might is right, and the strong make laws for the weak, and they
that make laws to serve their own turn do also make morals to give

colour to their laws."
"Your comparison, friar," said the stranger, "fails in this:

that your thief fights for profit, and your hero for honour.
I have fought under the banners of Richard, and if, as you phrase it,

he guts exchequers, and sacks cities, it is not to win treasure
for himself, but to furnish forth the means of his greater

and more glorious aim."
"Misconceive me not, sir knight," said the friar. "We all love

and honour King Richard, and here is a deep draught to his health:
but I would show you, that we foresters are miscalled by opprobrious names,

and that our virtues, though they follow at humble distance, are yet
truly akin to those of Coeur-de-Lion. I say not that Richard is a thief,

but I say that Robin is a hero: and for honour, did ever yet man,
miscalled thief, win greater honour than Robin? Do not all men grace

him with some honourable epithet? The most gentle thief, the most
courteous thief, the most bountiful thief, yea, and the most honest thief?

Richard is courteous, bountiful, honest, and valiant: but so also
is Robin: it is the false word that makes the unjust distinction.

They are twin-spirits, and should be friends, but that fortune hath
differently cast their lot: but their names shall descend together

to the latest days, as the flower of their age and of England:
for in the pure principles of freebootery have they excelled all men;

and to the principles of freebootery, diversely developed, belong all
the qualities to which song and story concede renown."

"And you may add, friar," said Marian, "that Robin, no less than Richard,
is king in his own dominion; and that if his subjects be fewer, yet are they

more uniformly loyal."
"I would, fair lady," said the stranger, "that thy latter observation were not

so true. But I nothing doubt, Robin, that if Richard could hear your friar,
and see you and your lady, as I now do, there is not a man in England whom

he would take by the hand more cordially than yourself."
"Gramercy, sir knight," said Robin---- But his speech was cut

short by Little John calling, "Hark!"