They had not fought many minutes by the forest clock, the sun; and had as yet done each other no worse injury than that the knight had wounded the forester’s jerkin, and the forester had disabled the knight’s plume; when they were interrupted by a voice from a thicket, exclaiming, “Well fought, girl: well fought. Mass, that had nigh been a shrewd hit. Thou owest him for that, lass. Marry, stand by, I’ll pay him for thee.”

The knight turning to the voice, beheld a tall friar issuing from the thicket, brandishing a ponderous cudgel.

“Who art thou?” said the knight.

“I am the church militant of Sherwood,” answered the friar. “Why art thou in arms against our lady queen?”

“What meanest thou?” said the knight.

“Truly, this,” said the friar, “is our liege lady of the forest, against whom I do apprehend thee in overt act of treason. What sayest thou for thyself?”

“I say,” answered the knight, “that if this be indeed a lady, man never yet held me so long.”

“Spoken,” said the friar, “like one who hath done execution. Hast thou thy stomach full of steel? Wilt thou diversify thy repast with a taste of my oak-graff? Or wilt thou incline thine heart to our venison which truly is cooling? Wilt thou fight? or wilt thou dine? or wilt thou fight and dine? or wilt thou dine and fight? I am for thee, choose as thou mayest.”

“I will dine,” said the knight; “for with lady I never fought before, and with friar I never fought yet, and with neither will I ever fight knowingly: and if this be the queen of the forest, I will not, being in her own dominions, be backward to do her homage.”

So saying, he kissed the hand of Marian, who was pleased most graciously to express her approbation.

“Gramercy, sir knight,” said the friar, “I laud thee for thy courtesy, which I deem to be no less than thy valour. Now do thou follow me, while I follow my nose, which scents the pleasant odour of roast from the depth of the forest recesses. I will lead thy horse, and do thou lead my lady.”

The knight took Marian’s hand, and followed the friar, who walked before them, singing:

When the wind blows, when the wind blows From where under buck the dry log glows, What guide can you follow, O’er brake and o’er hollow, So true as a ghostly, ghostly nose?

CHAPTER XVIII

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.”

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CHAPTER XVIII

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