ed the village dance. It was an old English dance, called a
"Morris Dance," with a lilt and a tilt which set all feet a-going.

[Music:

Fa la, fa la,
Trip a morris dance hilarious,
Lightly brightly,
Trip in measure multifarious,
Fa la la, fa la la,
Trip a morris dance hilarious,
Lightly and brightly we celebrate the fair!]

If anything was needed to add to the gaiety of the day, the outlaws
furnished it, because, among other things, they brought to the fair a
lot of goods belonging to other people, and they meant to put them up
at auction.

Friar Tuck was an old renegade monk who travelled about with the merry
men of Sherwood, to seem to lend a little piety to their doings. He
had a little bottle-shaped belly and the dirtiest face possible, a
tonsured head, and he wore a long brown habit tied round the middle
with a piece of rope which did duty for several things besides tying
this gown. He was a droll, jolly little bad man and he began the
auction with mock piety:

As an honest auctioneer,
I'm prepared to sell you here
Some goods in an assortment that is various;
Here's a late lamented deer
(That was once a King's, I fear)
Killing him was certainly precarious.

Here I have for sale
Casks of brown October ale,
Brewed to make humanity hilarious;
Here's a suit of homespun brave
Fit for honest man or knave;
Here's a stock in fact that's multifarious.

And so it was!

His stock consisted of the most curious assortment of plunder one ever
saw even at a Nottingham fair in the outlaw days of Robin Hood.

While all that tow-wow was going on, people were coming in droves to
the fair; and among them came Robert of Huntingdon. The name is very
thrilling, since the first part gives one an inkling that he beholds
for the first time the future Robin Hood. However, on that May morning
he was not yet an outlaw. He was a simple Knight of the Shire.

The Sheriff, who was a great personage in Nottingham, had a ward whom
he had foisted upon the good folks of Nottinghamshire as an Earl, but
as a fact he was simply a country lout, and all the teachings of the
Sheriff would not make him appear anything different. Robert of
Huntingdon was the Earl, in fact, and the Sheriff was going to try to
keep him out of his title and estates. The merry men of Sherwood
forest were great favourites with Robert and they were his friends