om the reluctant disgorgings of fat abbots and usurers. The
benefit was in some measure mutual; for these cottages served him as
resting-places in his removals, and enabled him to travel untraced and
unmolested; and in the delight with which he was always received he
found himself even more welcome than he would have been at an inn;
and this is saying very much for gratitude and affection together.
The smiles which surrounded him were of his own creation, and he
participated in the happiness he had bestowed.

The casements began to rattle in the wind, and the rain to beat upon
the windows. The wind swelled to a hurricane, and the rain dashed like
a flood against the glass. The boy retired to his little bed, the wife
trimmed the lamp, the husband heaped logs upon the fire: Robin broached
another flask; and Marian filled the baron's cup, and sweetened Robin's
by touching its edge with her lips.

"Well," said the baron, "give me a roof over my head, be it never so
humble. Your greenwood canopy is pretty and pleasant in sunshine; but if
I were doomed to live under it, I should wish it were water-tight."

"But," said Robin, "we have tents and caves for foul weather, good store
of wine and venison, and fuel in abundance."

"Ay, but," said the baron, "I like to pull off my boots of a night,
which you foresters seldom do, and to ensconce myself thereafter in
a comfortable bed. Your beech-root is over-hard for a couch, and your
mossy stump is somewhat rough for a bolster."

"Had you not dry leaves," said Robin, "with a bishop's surplice over
them? What would you have softer? And had you not an abbot's travelling
cloak for a coverlet? What would you have warmer?"

"Very true," said the baron, "but that was an indulgence to a guest, and
I dreamed all night of the sheriff of Nottingham. I like to feel myself
safe," he added, stretching out his legs to the fire, and throwing
himself back in his chair with the air of a man determined to be
comfortable. "I like to feel myself safe," said the baron.

At that moment the woman caught her husband's arm, and all the party
following the direction of her eyes, looked simultaneously to the
window, where they had just time to catch a glimpse of an apparition of
an armed head, with its plumage tossing in the storm, on which the light
shone from within, and which disappeared immediately.

CHAPTER XV

O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary.
When did I see thee so put d