The Knight’s Story
Yet Robin meant to fathom the cause of the knight’s trouble, for then, perhaps, he would be able to help him, so he continued pitilessly: “Tell me just one word, which I will keep secret from all other men: were you driven by compulsion to take up knighthood, or urged to beg it by reason of the ownership of some small estate; or have you wasted your old inheritance with fines for brawling and strife, or in gambling and riotousness, or in borrowing at usury? All of these are fatal to a good estate.”
The knight replied: “Alas! good Robin, none of these hath been my undoing. My ancestors have all been knights for over a hundred years, and I have not lived wastefully, but soberly and sparely. As short a time ago as last year I had over four hundred pounds saved, which I could spend freely among my neighbours, and my income was four hundred pounds a year, from my land; but now my only possessions are my wife and children. This is the work of God’s hand, and to Him I commit me to amend my estate in His own good time.”