"Nay, forbear!" cried Robin, laughing until his sore sides ached again.
"He is a right good man and true, and no harm shall befall him. Now hark
ye, good youth, wilt thou stay with me and be one of my band? Three
suits of Lincoln green shalt thou have each year, beside forty marks in
fee, and share with us whatsoever good shall befall us. Thou shalt eat
sweet venison and quaff the stoutest ale, and mine own good right-hand
man shalt thou be, for never did I see such a cudgel player in all my
life before. Speak! Wilt thou be one of my good merry men?"

"That know I not," quoth the stranger surlily, for he was angry at being
so tumbled about. "If ye handle yew bow and apple shaft no better than
ye do oaken cudgel, I wot ye are not fit to be called yeomen in my
country; but if there be any man here that can shoot a better shaft than
I, then will I bethink me of joining with you."

"Now by my faith," said Robin, "thou art a right saucy varlet, sirrah;
yet I will stoop to thee as I never stooped to man before. Good Stutely,
cut thou a fair white piece of bark four fingers in breadth, and set it
fourscore yards distant on yonder oak. Now, stranger, hit that fairly
with a gray goose shaft and call thyself an archer."

"Ay, marry, that will I," answered he. "Give me a good stout bow and a
fair broad arrow, and if I hit it not, strip me and beat me blue with
bowstrings."

Then he chose the stoutest bow among them all, next to Robin's own, and
a straight gray goose shaft, well-feathered and smooth, and stepping to
the mark--while all the band, sitting or lying upon the greensward,
watched to see him shoot--he drew the arrow to his cheek and loosed the
shaft right deftly, sending it so straight down the path that it clove