if you be in need. Go look, Little John; we take no stranger's word in
the greenwood."

John examined the knight's effects, and reported that he had told the
truth. Robin gazed curiously at his guest.

"I held you for a knight of high estate," he said. "A heedless
husbandman you must have been, a gambler or wassailer, to have brought
yourself to this sorry pass. An empty pocket and threadbare attire ill
befit a knight of your parts."

"You wrong me, Robin," said the knight, sadly. "Misfortune, not sin, has
beggared me. I have nothing left but my children and my wife; but it is
through no deed of my own. My son--my heir he should have been--slew a
knight of Lancashire and his squire. To save him from the law I have
made myself a beggar. Even my lands and house must go, for I have
pledged them to the abbot of St. Mary as surety for four hundred pounds
loaned me. I cannot pay him, and the time is near its end. I have lost
hope, good sir, and am on my way to the sea, to take ship for the Holy
Land. Pardon my tears, I leave a wife and children."

"Where are your friends?" asked Robin.

"Where are the last year's leaves of your trees?" asked the knight.
"They were fair enough while the summer sun shone; they dropped from me
when the winter of trouble came."

"Can you not borrow the sum?" asked Robin. "Not a groat," answered the
knight. "I have no more credit than a beggar."