ts, they departed together with the foresters, the parents
storming, the attendants laughing, the bishop puffing and blowing, and
the knight rubbing his gouty foot, and uttering doleful lamentations for
the gold and jewels with which he had so unwittingly adorned and cowered
the bride.

CHAPTER XIV

As ye came from the holy land
Of blessed Walsinghame,
Oh met ye not with my true love,
As by the way ye came?

--Old Ballad.

In pursuance of the arrangement recorded in the twelfth chapter, the
baron, Robin, and Marian disguised themselves as pilgrims returned from
Palestine, and travelling from the sea-coast of Hampshire to their home
in Northumberland. By dint of staff and cockle-shell, sandal and scrip,
they proceeded in safety the greater part of the way (for Robin had many
sly inns and resting-places between Barnsdale and Sherwood), and were
already on the borders of Yorkshire, when, one evening, they passed
within view of a castle, where they saw a lady standing on a turret,
and surveying the whole extent of the valley through which they were
passing. A servant came running from the castle, and delivered to them
a message from his lady, who was sick with expectation of news from her
lord in the Holy Land, and entreated them to come to her, that she might
question them concerning him. This was an awkward occurrence: but there
was no presence for refusal, and they followed the servant into the
castle. The baron, who had been in Palestine in his youth, undertook to
be spokesman on the occasion, and to relate his own adventures to
the lady as having happened to the lord in question. This preparation
enabled him to be so minute and circumstantial in his detail, and so
coherent in his replies to her questions, that the lady fell implicitly
into the delusion, and was delighted to find that her lord was alive and
in health, and in high favour with the king, and performing prodigies
of valour in the name of his lady, whose miniature he always wore in his
bosom. The baron guessed at this circumstance from the customs of that
age, and happened to be in the right.

"This miniature," added the baron, "I have had the felicity to see, and
should have known you by it among a million." The baron was a little
embarrassed by some questions of the lady concerning her lord's personal
appearance; but Robin came to his aid, observing a picture suspended
opposite to him on the wall, which