My master has tarried dinner for you these three hours."
"I doubt," said the knight, "I am not he you wot of.
I am no where bidden to day and I know none in this vicinage."
"We feared," said the youth, "your memory would be treacherous:
therefore am I stationed here to refresh it."
"Who is your master?" said the knight; "and where does he abide?"
"My master," said the youth, "is called Robin Hood, and he abides hard by."
"And what knows he of me?" said the knight.
"He knows you," answered the youth "as he does every way-faring
knight and friar, by instinct."
"Gramercy," said the knight; "then I understand his bidding:
but how if I say I will not come?"
"I am enjoined to bring you," said the youth. "If persuasion avail not,
I must use other argument."
"Say'st thou so?" said the knight; "I doubt if thy stripling rhetoric
would convince me."
"That," said the young forester, "we will see."
"We are not equally matched, boy," said the knight.
"I should get less honour by thy conquest, than grief
by thy injury."
"Perhaps," said the youth, "my strength is more than my seeming,
and my cunning more than my strength. Therefore let it please
your knighthood to dismount."
"It shall please my knighthood to chastise thy presumption,"
said the knight, springing from his saddle.
Hereupon, which in those days was usually the result of a meeting
between any two persons anywhere, they proceeded to fight.
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