uch they
saw, and different was it, I wot, from the tangled depths of the sweet
woodlands, but full as fair. Thus Robin led his band, walking blithely
with chest thrown out and head thrown back, snuffing the odors of the
gentle breeze that came drifting from over the hayfields.

"Truly," quoth he, "the dear world is as fair here as in the woodland
shades. Who calls it a vale of tears? Methinks it is but the darkness in
our minds that bringeth gloom to the world. For what sayeth that merry
song thou singest, Little John? Is it not thus?

"_For when my love's eyes do thine, do thine,
And when her lips smile so rare,
The day it is jocund and fine, so fine,
Though let it be wet or be fair
And when the stout ale is all flowing so fast,
Our sorrows and troubles are things of the past_."

"Nay," said Friar Tuck piously, "ye do think of profane things and of
nought else; yet, truly, there be better safeguards against care and woe
than ale drinking and bright eyes, to wit, fasting and meditation. Look
upon me, have I the likeness of a sorrowful man?"

At this a great shout of laughter went up from all around, for the night
before the stout Friar had emptied twice as many canakins of ale as any
one of all the merry men.

"Truly," quoth Robin, when he could speak for laughter, "I should say
that thy sorrows were about equal to thy goodliness."

So they stepped along, talking, singing, jesting, and laughing, until
they had come to a certain little church that belonged to the great
estates owned by the rich Priory of Emmet. Here it was that fair Ellen
was to be married on that morn, and here was the spot toward which the
yeomen had pointed their toes. On the other side of the road from where
the church stood with waving fields of barley around, ran a stone wall
along the roadside. Over the wall from the highway was a fringe of young
trees and bushes, and here and there the wall itself was covered by a
mass of blossoming woodbine that filled all the warm air far and near
with its sweet summer odor. Then straightway the yeomen leaped over the
wall, alighting on the tall soft grass upon the other side, frightening
a flock of sheep that lay there in the shade so that they scampered away
in all directions. Here was a sweet cool shadow both from the wall and
from the fair young trees and bushes, and here sat the yeomen down, and
glad enough they were to rest after their long tramp of the morning.

"N