he Abbot only swore a great oath, and vowed that the money must
be paid that day or the lands be forfeited.

The Knight stood up straight and tall: 'It is well,' said he, 'to
prove one's friends against the hour of need,' and he looked the Abbot
full in the face, and the Abbot felt uneasy, he did not know why, and
hated the Knight more than ever. 'Out of my hall, false Knight!' cried
he, pretending to a courage which he did not feel. But the Knight
stayed where he was, and answered him, 'You lie, Abbot. Never was I
false, and that I have shown in jousts and in tourneys.'

'Give him two hundred pounds more,' said the Justiciar to the Abbot,
'and keep the lands yourself.'

'No, by Heaven!' answered the Knight, 'not if you offered me a
thousand pounds would I do it! Neither Justiciar, Abbot, nor Monk
shall be heir of mine.' Then he strode up to a table and emptied out
four hundred pounds. 'Take your gold, Sir Abbot, which you lent to me
a year agone. Had you but received me civilly, I would have paid you
something more.

'Sir Abbot, and ye men of law,
Now have I kept my day!
Now shall I have my land again,
For aught that you may say.'

So he passed out of the hall singing merrily, leaving the Abbot
staring silently after him, and rode back to his house in Verisdale,
where his wife met him at the gate.

'Welcome, my lord,' said his lady,
'Sir, lost is all your good.'
'Be merry, dame,' said the Knight,
'And pray for Robin Hood.'

'But for his kindness, we had been beggars.'

After this the Knight dwelt at home, looking after his lands, and
saving his money carefully till the four hundred pounds lay ready for
Robin Hood. Then he bought a hundred bows and a hundred arrows, and
every arrow was an ell long, and had a head of silver and peacock's
feathers. And clothing himself in white and red, and with a hundred
men in his train, he set off to Sherwood Forest.

On the way he passed an open space near a bridge where there was a
wrestling, and the Knight stopped and looked, for he himself had taken
many a prize in that sport. Here the prizes were such as to fill any
man with envy; a fine horse, saddled and bridled, a great white bull,
a pair of gloves, a ring of bright red gold, and a pipe of wine. There
was not a yeoman present who did not hope to win one of them. But when
the wrestling was over, the yeoman who had beaten them all was a man
who kept apart from his fellows, and