Like Will, this fellow was clad in scarlet, though he did not look quite as fine a gentleman. Nathless, he was a sturdy yeoman of honest face and a voice far sweeter than Will’s. He seemed to be a strolling minstrel, for he bore a harp in his hand, which he thrummed, while his lusty tenor voice rang out with--
“Hey down, and a down, and a down! I’ve a lassie back i’ the town; Come day, come night, Come dark or light, She will wed me, back i’ the town!”
Robin let the singer pass, caroling on his way.
“‘Tis not in me to disturb a light-hearted lover, this night,” he muttered, a memory of Marian coming back to him. “Pray heaven she may be true to him and the wedding be a gay one ‘back i’ the town!”’
So Robin went back to his camp, where he told of the minstrel.
“If any of ye set on him after this,” quoth he in ending, “bring him to me, for I would have speech with him.”
The very next day his wish was gratified. Little John and Much the miller’s son were out together on a foraging expedition when they espied the same young man; at least, they thought it must be he, for he was clad in scarlet and carried a harp in his hand. But now he came drooping along the way; his scarlet was all in tatters; and at every step he fetched a sigh, “Alack and a well-a-day!”
Then stepped forth Little John and Much the miller’s son.
“Ho! do not wet the earth with your weeping,” said Little John, “else we shall all have 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.”