"Stop!" roared Little John. "Help! Hold, I say! I yield me! I yield me,
I say, good fellow!"

"Hast thou had enough?" asked the Tanner grimly, holding his staff
aloft.

"Ay, marry, and more than enough."

"And thou dost own that I am the better man of the two?"

"Yea, truly, and a murrain seize thee!" said Little John, the first
aloud and the last to his beard.

"Then thou mayst go thy ways; and thank thy patron saint that I am a
merciful man," said the Tanner.

"A plague o' such mercy as thine!" said Little John, sitting up and
feeling his ribs where the Tanner had cudgeled him. "I make my vow, my
ribs feel as though every one of them were broken in twain. I tell thee,
good fellow, I did think there was never a man in all Nottinghamshire
could do to me what thou hast done this day."

"And so thought I, also," cried Robin Hood, bursting out of the thicket
and shouting with laughter till the tears ran down his cheeks. "O man,
man!" said he, as well as he could for his mirth, "'a didst go over
like a bottle knocked from a wall. I did see the whole merry bout, and
never did I think to see thee yield thyself so, hand and foot, to any
man in all merry England. I was seeking thee, to chide thee for leaving
my bidding undone; but thou hast been paid all I owed thee, full