lumbago."

No sooner did the young man catch sight of them than he bent his bow,
and held an arrow back to his ear.

"Stand off! stand off!" he said; "what is your will with me?"

"Put by your weapon," said Much, "we will not harm you. But you must
come before our master straight, under yon greenwood tree."

So the minstrel put by his bow and suffered himself to be led before
Robin Hood.

"How now!" quoth Robin, when he beheld his sorry countenance, "are you
not he whom I heard no longer ago than yesternight caroling so blithely
about 'a lassie back i' the town'?"

"The same in body, good sir," replied the other sadly; "but my spirit is
grievously changed."

"Tell me your tale," said Robin courteously. "Belike I can help you."

"That can no man on earth, I fear," said the stranger; "nathless, I'll
tell you the tale. Yesterday I stood pledged to a maid, and thought
soon to wed her. But she has been taken from me and is to become an
old knight's bride this very day; and as for me, I care not what ending
comes to my days, or how soon, without her."

"Marry, come up!" said Robin; "how got the old knight so sudden
vantage?"

"Look you, worship, 'tis this way. The Normans overrun us, and are in
such great favor that none may say them nay. This old returned Crusader
coveted the land whereon my lady dwells. The estate is not large, but
all in her own right; whereupon her brother says she shall wed a title,
and he and the old knight have fixed it up for to-day."

"Nay, but surely--" began Robin.

"Hear me out, worship," said the other. "Belike you think me a sorry
dog not to make fight of this. But the old knight, look you, is not
come-at-able. I threw one of his varlets into a thorn hedge, and another
into a water-butt, and a third landed head-first into a ditch. But I
couldn't do any fighting at all."

"'Tis a pity!" quoth Little John gravely. He had been sitting
cross-legged listening to this tale of woe. "What think you, Friar Tuck,
doth not a bit of fighting ease a man's mind?"

"Blood-letting is ofttimes recommended of the leeches," replied Tuck.

"Does the maid love you?" asked Robin Hood.

"By our troth, she loved me right well," said the minstrel. "I have a
little ring of hers by me which I have kept for seven long years."

"What is your name?" then said Robin Hood.

"By the faith of my body," replied the young man, "my name is
Allan-a-Dale."

"What will you give me, Allan-a-Dale," said Robin Ho