Page 217 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

‘Speak out, Bishop,’ quoth Robin, laughing. ‘We of Sher-
wood check not an easy flow of words. ‘Den of thieves’ thou
west about to say.’
Quoth the Bishop, ‘Mayhap that was what I meant to say,
Sir Richard; but this I will say, that I saw thee just now laugh
at the scurrilous jests of these fellows. It would have been
more becoming of thee, methinks, to have checked them
with frowns instead of spurring them on by laughter.’
‘I meant no harm to thee,’ said Sir Richard, ‘but a merry
jest is a merry jest, and I may truly say I would have laughed
at it had it been against mine own self.’
But now Robin Hood called upon certain ones of his
band who spread soft moss upon the ground and laid deer-
skins thereon. Then Robin bade his guests be seated, and so
they all three sat down, some of the chief men, such as Lit-
tle John, Will Scarlet, Allan a Dale, and others, stretching
themselves upon the ground near by. Then a garland was
set up at the far end of the glade, and thereat the bowmen
shot, and such shooting was done that day as it would have
made one’s heart leap to see. And all the while Robin talked
so quaintly to the Bishop and the Knight that, the one for-
getting his vexation and the other his troubles, they both
laughed aloud again and again.
Then Allan a Dale came forth and tuned his harp, and
all was hushed around, and he sang in his wondrous voice
songs of love, of war, of glory, and of sadness, and all lis-
tened without a movement or a sound. So Allan sang till the
great round silver moon gleamed with its clear white light
amid the upper tangle of the mazy branches of the trees. At

1 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood