of the forest, and so to the highway. He saw two bands of the Sheriff's
men, yet he turned neither to the right nor the left, but only drew his
cowl the closer over his face, folding his hands as if in meditation.
So at last he came to the Sign of the Blue Boar. "For," quoth he to
himself, "our good friend Eadom will tell me all the news."

At the Sign of the Blue Boar he found a band of the Sheriffs men
drinking right lustily; so, without speaking to anyone, he sat down upon
a distant bench, his staff in his hand, and his head bowed forward as
though he were meditating. Thus he sat waiting until he might see the
landlord apart, and Eadom did not know him, but thought him to be some
poor tired friar, so he let him sit without saying a word to him or
molesting him, though he liked not the cloth. "For," said he to himself,
"it is a hard heart that kicks the lame dog from off the sill." As
Stutely sat thus, there came a great house cat and rubbed against his
knee, raising his robe a palm's-breadth high. Stutely pushed his robe
quickly down again, but the constable who commanded the Sheriffs men
saw what had passed, and saw also fair Lincoln green beneath the friar's
robe. He said nothing at the time, but communed within himself in this
wise: "Yon is no friar of orders gray, and also, I wot, no honest yeoman
goeth about in priest's garb, nor doth a thief go so for nought. Now I
think in good sooth that is one of Robin Hood's own men." So, presently,
he said aloud, "O holy father, wilt thou not take a good pot of March
beer to slake thy thirsty soul withal?"

But Stutely shook his head silently, for he said to himself, "Maybe
there be those here who know my voice."

Then the constable said again, "Whither goest thou, holy friar, upon
this hot summer's day?"