u findest, keep: and for the
sake of thy kind heart and open hand, be it what it may, I shall wish it
were more."

"Then, since thou sayest so," said Robin, "not a penny will I touch.
Many a false churl comes hither, and disburses against his will: and
till there is lack of these, I prey not on true men."

"Thou art thyself a true man, right well I judge, Robin," said the
stranger knight, "and seemest more like one bred in court than to thy
present outlaw life."

"Our life," said the friar, "is a craft, an art, and a mystery. How much
of it, think you, could be learned at court?"

"Indeed, I cannot say," said the stranger knight: "but I should
apprehend very little."

"And so should I," said the friar: "for we should find very little
of our bold open practice, but should hear abundance of praise of our
principles. To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry; to have a
hand for all, and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, and
nobody's friend; to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and to
dread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honours
and despoil fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping in
darkness: these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'r
Lady, have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his throat
to the praise of your court-hero, then come our principles into play:
then is our practice extolled not by the same name, for their Richard
is a hero, and our Robin is a thief: marry, your hero guts an exchequer,
while your thief disembowels a portmanteau, your hero sacks a city,
while your thief sacks a cellar: your hero marauds on a larger scale,
and that is all the difference, for the principle and the virtue are
one: but two of a trade cannot agree: therefore your hero makes laws to
get rid of your thief, and gives him an ill name that he may hang him:
for might is right, and the strong make laws for the weak, and they that
make laws to serve their own turn do also make morals to give colour to
their laws."

"Your comparison, friar," said the stranger, "fails in this: that your
thief fights for profit, and your hero for honour. I have fought under
the banners of Richard, and if, as you phrase it, he guts exchequers,
and sacks cities, it is not to win treasure for himself, but to furnish
forth the means of his greater and more glorious aim."

"Misconceive me not, sir knight," said the friar. "We all love and
honour King Ric