"
Robin looked round on his men.
"Your followers," said the king, "shall have free pardon, and such
of them as thou wilt part with shall have maintenance from me;
and if ever I confess to priest, it shall be to thy friar."
"Gramercy to your majesty," said the friar; "and my inflictions
shall be flasks of canary; and if the number be (as in grave cases
I may, peradventure, make it) too great for one frail mortality,
I will relieve you by vicarious penance, and pour down my own
throat the redundancy of the burden."
Robin and his followers embraced the king's proposal.
A joyful meeting soon followed with the baron and Sir Guy of Gamwell:
and Richard himself honoured with his own presence a formal
solemnization of the nuptials of our lovers, whom he constantly
distinguished with his peculiar regard.
The friar could not say, Farewell to the forest, without something
of a heavy heart: and he sang as he turned his back upon its bounds,
occasionally reverting his head:
Ye woods, that oft at sultry noon
Have o'er me spread your messy shade:
Ye gushing streams, whose murmured tune
Has in my ear sweet music made,
While, where the dancing pebbles show
Deep in the restless fountain-pool
The gelid water's upward flow,
My second flask was laid to cool:
Ye pleasant sights of leaf and flower:
Ye pleasant sounds of bird and bee:
Ye sports of deer in sylvan bower:
Ye feasts beneath the greenwood tree:
Ye baskings in the vernal sun:
Ye slumbers in the summer dell:
Ye trophies that this arm has won:
And must ye hear your friar's farewell?
But the friar's farewell was not destined to be eternal.
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