"Youth," he said, "I forgive you. Go unhurt."
Then turning to his chief captain, he said,—
"Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let him depart."
He fell back on his couch, and in a few minutes was dead, having signalized his last moments with an act of clemency which had had few counterparts in his life. His clemency was not matched by his piety. The priests who were present at his dying bed exhorted him to repentance and restitution, but he drove them away with bitter mockery, and died as hardened a sinner as he had lived. It should, however, be said that this statement of the character of Richard's death, given by the historian Green, does not accord with that of Lingard, who says that Richard sent for his confessor and received the sacraments with sentiments of compunction.
As for Bertrand, the chronicles say that he failed to profit by the kindness of the king. A dead monarch's voice has no weight in the land. The pardoned youth was put to death.
ROBIN HOOD AND THE KNIGHT OF THE RUEFUL COUNTENANCE.
"Where will the old duke live?" asks Oliver, in Shakespeare's "As you like it."
"They say he is already in the forest of Arden," answers Charles, "and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world."
Many a merry man, indeed, was there with Robin Hood in Sherwood forest, and, if we may believe the stories that live in the heart of English song, there they fleeted the time as carelessly as men did in the golden age; for Robin was king of the merry greenwood, as the Norman kings were lords of the realm beside, and though his state was not so great nor his coffers so full, his heart was merrier and his conscience more void of offence against man and God. If Robin lived by plunder, so did the king; the one took toll from a few travellers, the other from a kingdom; the one dealt hard blows in self-defence, the other killed thousands in war for self-aggrandizement; the one was a patriot, the other an invader. Verily Robin was far the honester man of the two, and most worthy the admiration of mankind.