Robin and Richard were two pretty men. Mother Goose's Melody.
They proceeded, following their infallible guide, first along a light elastic greensward under the shade of lofty and wide-spreading trees that skirted a sunny opening of the forest, then along labyrinthine paths, which the deer, the outlaw, or the woodman had made, through the close shoots of the young coppices, through the thick undergrowth of the ancient woods, through beds of gigantic fern that filled the narrow glades and waved their green feathery heads above the plume of the knight. Along these sylvan alleys 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 maiden meditation 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 transparent rivulet 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 courteous welcome 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 departed contents 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 embassy justly, 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 sorrowful knight 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 faithful messenger."
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.
