Page 170 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

Robin Hood Seeks the

Curtal Friar

HE STOUT YEOMEN of Sherwood Forest were ever
Tearly risers of a morn, more especially when the sum-
mertime had come, for then in the freshness of the dawn
the dew was always the brightest, and the song of the small
birds the sweetest.
Quoth Robin, ‘Now will I go to seek this same Friar of
Fountain Abbey of whom we spake yesternight, and I will
take with me four of my good men, and these four shall be
Little John, Will Scarlet, David of Doncaster, and Arthur a
Bland. Bide the rest of you here, and Will Stutely shall be
your chief while I am gone.’ Then straightway Robin Hood
donned a fine steel coat of chain mail, over which he put on
a light jacket of Lincoln green. Upon his head he clapped
a steel cap, and this he covered by one of soft white leath-
er, in which stood a nodding cock’s plume. By his side he
hung a good broadsword of tempered steel, the bluish blade
marked all over with strange figures of dragons, winged
women, and what not. A gallant sight was Robin so arrayed,
I wot, the glint of steel showing here and there as the sun-
light caught brightly the links of polished mail that showed
beneath his green coat.
So, having arrayed himself, he and the four yeomen set

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