His rolling eye encountered that of Little John's, coolly helping himself to a second serve. "You rascal! you rogue!" spluttered Monceux. "You scum of the kitchens! Where is my plate? You shall be shred into little pieces for this trick, and you also, false butcher."
"Nay, excellence," said a gentle voice near to him, "this is no butcher; but rather Master Robin o' th' Hood, a good yeoman and right Saxon. Some call him Robin of Locksley. Let me fill your goblet, excellence, for you have spilled all the wine."
Monceux glared at the speaker, a handsome lad dressed gaily in page's costume. The Sheriff's frown would have frightened most people, but the dark-haired boy only laughed and tossed his head in a queerly fascinating way. The Sheriff, relaxing, held out his goblet, and smiled back upon the page.
"Well done, Master Gilbert of Blois!" cried Robin, who sat at the Sheriff's left hand. "Now tell me how you discovered me, and I will love you----"
The lad blushed furiously. "I knew you from the first, Robin o' th' Hood," he answered, defiantly.
"In truth?" questioned Robin, slily, and with his own suspicions growing. No wonder he had seen nothing of Marian in Nottingham town.
"In truth--well, no," submitted the page. "Let me fill your tankard, friend. But very soon I did discover you. Is this the stag that you killed, Robin o' th' Hood?" he added, innocently.
Robin nodded; and the Sheriff flashed another look of anger upon him. "Sit you beside me, Gilbert," Robin ordered; "I am very fain to have speech with you."
Marian, with her woman's intuition, knew from his tone that she also was discovered. Yet she braved it out. "I will fill all the cups, Robin o' th' Hood," she said, firmly, with an adorable little shake of her black curls; "then will hear your adventures as a Nottingham butcher, which I see you are dying to tell to us."
The page skipped lightly from under Robin's threatening hand, and the merry men laughed loud and long. "He calls you Robin o' th' Hood, master!" cried John Berry, roaring like a bull. For some reason this nick-name tickled him mightily. He kept repeating it in all kinds of tones, and those about him began to laugh also.
"'Tis a very excellent name," said Robin, a little vexed. "A merry name, a man's name, and a name to my heart! I do adopt it from this day; for is not Robin Fitzooth of Locksley dead? My lord the Sheriff can tell you that he is, for he has burned him. Laugh at it, or like it, friends, which you will. But pledge me in it, for I have paid the reckoning."
Little John, Stuteley, and Much rose to their feet together in their hurry to be first. The others were not slow in following them.
"Long life to you and happiness, Robin o' th' Hood! Here's fortune's best and confusion to all your enemies! Huzza, Robin o' th' Hood!"
The darkening woods echoed it back to them. "Robin o' th' Hood! Robin--Hood!"
"You will have to be christened, gossip," said Little John, with an air of importance; "and surely I know the man who will be sponsor. But you spoke just now of a reckoning; and I do see that our guest is become fidgety. Shall I tot up the bill for him?"
"Do so, friend."
The Sheriff appeared uneasy at this. "I have not my purse with me," he began, apologetically.
"How did you purpose paying me for my beasts?" asked Robin.
"Why--that is--I have, of course, a small sum about me."
"What is that sum, gossip?" questioned Little John, very kindly.
"'Tis no more than forty pieces of gold," said Monceux, recollecting that he had named this amount to Robin.
"Is that all?"
"I have not another penny-piece, good Master Hood," replied the Sheriff.
"If that is true, then you shall pay no more than ten pieces of gold for your entertainment, excellence," decreed Robin. "Speak I soothly, men of the greenwood?"
"The Sheriff should swear by his patron saint that he will never more molest us," said one of the company, wisely; and this addition was carried unanimously.
"So be it, then," cried Little John, approaching Monceux. "Now, swear by your life and your patron saint----"
"I will swear it by St. George, who is patron of us all," cried the fat Sheriff, vigorously; and he swore that never again would he disturb or distress them in Sherwood.
"Let me catch anyone of you out of it!" thought he to himself.
