."

Will Scarlet and Little John had meanwhile fallen in with Marian's idea,
for they consulted the other outlaws, who nodded their heads. Thereupon
Little John and Will Scarlet went into the cave near by and presently
returned bearing a bag of gold. This they counted out before the
astonished knight; and there were four times one hundred gold pieces in
it.

"Take this loan from us, Sir Knight, and pay your debt to the Bishop,"
then said Robin. "Nay, no thanks; you are but exchanging creditors.
Mayhap we shall not be so hard upon you as the Christian Bishop; yet,
again we may be harder. Who can tell?"

There were actual tears in Sir Richard's eyes, as he essayed to thank
the foresters. But at this juncture, Much, the miller's son, came from
the cave dragging a bale of cloth. "The knight should have a suit worthy
of his rank, master--think you not so?"

"Measure him twenty ells of it," ordered Robin.

"Give him a good horse, also," whispered Marian. "'Tis a gift which will
come back four-fold, for this is a worthy man. I know him well."

So the horse was given, also, and Robin bade Arthur-a-Bland ride with
the knight as far as his castle, as esquire.

The knight was sorrowful no longer; yet he could hardly voice his thanks
through his broken utterance. And having spent the night in rest,
after listening to Allan-a-Dale's singing, he mounted his new steed the
following morning an altogether different man.

"God save you, comrades, and keep you all!" said he, with deep feeling
in his tones; "and give me a grateful heart!"

"We shall wait for you twelve months from to-day, here in this place,"
said Robin, shaking him by the hand; "and then you will repay us the
loan, if you have been prospered."

"I shall return it to you within the year, upon my honor as Sir Richard
of the Lea. And for all time, pray count on me as a steadfast friend."

So saying the knight and his esquire rode down the forest glade till
they were lost to view.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW THE BISHOP WAS DINED

"O what is the matter?" then said the Bishop,
"Or for whom do you make this a-do?
Or why do you kill the King's venison,
When your company is so few?"

"We are shepherds," quoth bold Robin Hood,
"And we keep sheep all the year,
And we are disposed to be merrie this day,
And to kill of the King's fat deer."

Not many days after Sir Richard of the Lea came to Sherwood Forest,
word reached Robi