Page 123 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

would cry, ‘La!’ or ‘Alack-a-day!’ and fall straightway into a
swoon. I wonder who he may be.’
‘Some great baron’s son, I doubt not,’ answered Little
John, ‘with good and true men’s money lining his purse.’
‘Ay, marry, that is true, I make no doubt,’ quoth Rob-
in. ‘What a pity that such men as he, that have no thought
but to go abroad in gay clothes, should have good fellows,
whose shoes they are not fit to tie, dancing at their bidding.
By Saint Dunstan, Saint Alfred, Saint Withold, and all the
good men in the Saxon calendar, it doth make me mad to
see such gay lordlings from over the sea go stepping on the
necks of good Saxons who owned this land before ever their
great-grandsires chewed rind of brawn! By the bright bow
of Heaven, I will have their ill-gotten gains from them, even
though I hang for it as high as e’er a forest tree in Sher-
wood!’
‘Why, how now, master,’ quoth Little John, ‘what heat is
this? Thou dost set thy pot a-boiling, and mayhap no bacon
to cook! Methinks yon fellow’s hair is overlight for Norman
locks. He may be a good man and true for aught thou know-
est.’
‘Nay,’ said Robin, ‘my head against a leaden farthing, he
is what I say. So, lie ye both here, I say, till I show you how I
drub this fellow.’ So saying, Robin Hood stepped forth from
the shade of the beech tree, crossed the stile, and stood in
the middle of the road, with his hands on his hips, in the
stranger’s path.
Meantime the stranger, who had been walking so slowly
that all this talk was held before he came opposite the place

1 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood