"Ay, marry, that is true, I make no doubt," quoth Robin. "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 Sherwood!"

"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 knowest."

"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 where they were, neither
quickened his pace nor seemed to see that such a man as Robin Hood was
in the world. So Robin stood in the middle of the road, waiting while
the other walked slowly forward, smelling his rose, and looking this way
and that, and everywhere except at Robin.

"Hold!" cried Robin, when at last the other had come close to him.