Page 160 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

Then straightway the youth told the three yeomen all that
was in his heart; at first in broken words and phrases, then
freely and with greater ease when he saw that all listened
closely to what he said. So he told them how he had come
from York to the sweet vale of Rother, traveling the country
through as a minstrel, stopping now at castle, now at hall,
and now at farmhouse; how he had spent one sweet evening
in a certain broad, low farmhouse, where he sang before a
stout franklin and a maiden as pure and lovely as the first
snowdrop of spring; how he had played and sung to her, and
how sweet Ellen o’ the Dale had listened to him and had
loved him. Then, in a low, sweet voice, scarcely louder than
a whisper, he told how he had watched for her and met her
now and then when she went abroad, but was all too afraid
in her sweet presence to speak to her, until at last, beside
the banks of Rother, he had spoken of his love, and she had
whispered that which had made his heartstrings quiver for
joy. Then they broke a sixpence between them, and vowed
to be true to one another forever.
Next he told how her father had discovered what was a-
doing, and had taken her away from him so that he never
saw her again, and his heart was sometimes like to break;
how this morn, only one short month and a half from the
time that he had seen her last, he had heard and knew it to
be so, that she was to marry old Sir Stephen of Trent, two
days hence, for Ellen’s father thought it would be a grand
thing to have his daughter marry so high, albeit she wished
it not; nor was it wonder that a knight should wish to marry
his own sweet love, who was the most beautiful maiden in

1