“God’s blessing on your heart!” he cried, clapping the burly fellow on the shoulder; “I would travel an hundred miles to find one who could match you!”
At this Will Scarlet laughed full roundly.
“There lives a curtall friar in Fountain’s Abbey--Tuck, by name--who can beat both him and you,” he said.
Robin pricked up his ears at this free speech.
“By our Lady,” he said, “I’ll neither eat nor drink till I see this same friar.”
And with his usual impetuosity he at once set about arming himself for the adventure. On his head he placed a cap of steel. Underneath his Lincoln green he wore a coat of chain metal. Then with sword and buckler girded at his side he made a goodly show. But he also took with him his stout yew bow and a sheaf of chosen arrows.
So he set forth upon his way with blithe heart; for it was a day when the whole face of the earth seemed glad and rejoicing in pulsing life. Steadily he pressed forward by winding ways till he came to a green broad pasture land at whose edge flowed a stream dipping in and out among the willows and rushes on the banks. A pleasant stream it was, but it flowed calmly as though of some depth in the middle. Robin did not fancy getting his feet wet, or his fine suit of mail rusted, so he paused on the hither bank to rest and take his bearings.
As he sat down quietly under the shade of a drooping willow he heard snatches of a jovial song floating to him from the farther side; then came a sound of two men’s voices arguing. One was upholding the merits of hasty pudding and the other stood out stoutly for meat pie, “especially”--quoth this one--“when flavored with young onions!”
“Gramercy!” muttered Robin to himself, “that is a tantalizing speech to a hungry man! But, odds bodikins! did ever two men talk more alike than those two fellows yonder!”
In truth Robin could well marvel at the speech, for the voices were curiously alike.
Presently the willows parted on the other bank, and Robin could hardly forebear laughing out right. His mystery was explained. It was not two men who had done all this singing and talking, but one--and that one a stout curtall friar who wore a long cloak over his portly frame, tied with a cord in the middle. On his head was a knight’s helmet, and in his hand was a no more warlike weapon than a huge pasty pie, with which he sat down by the water’s edge. His twofold argument was finished. The meat pie had triumphed; and no wonder! for it was the present witness, soon to give its own testimony.