Presently they heard some one coming up the road whistling gaily, as though he owned the whole world and ‘twas but made to whistle in. Anon he chanted a roundelay with a merry note.
“By my troth, a gay bird!” quoth Robin, raising up on his elbow. “Let us lie still, and trust that his purse is not as light as his heart.”
So they lay still, and in a minute more up came a smart stranger dressed in scarlet and silk and wearing a jaunty hat with a curling cock feather in it. His whole costume was of scarlet, from the feather to the silk hosen on his legs. A goodly sword hung at his side, its scabbard all embossed with tilting knights and weeping ladies. His hair was long and yellow and hung clustering about his shoulders, for all the world like a schoolgirl’s; and he bore himself with as mincing a gait as the pertest of them.
Little John clucked his teeth drolly at this sight. “By my troth, a gay bird!” he said echoing the other’s words—then added, “But not so bad a build for all his prettiness. Look you, those calves and thighs are well rounded and straight. The arms, for all that gold-wrought cloak, hang stoutly from full shoulders. I warrant you the fop can use his dainty sword right well on occasion.”
“Nay,” retorted Robin, “he is naught but a ladies’ man from court. My long-bow ‘gainst a plugged shilling that he would run and bellow lustily at sight of a quarter-staff. Stay you behind this bush and I will soon get some rare sport out of him. Belike his silk purse may contain more pennies than the law allows to one man in Sherwood or Barnesdale.”
So saying Robin Hood stepped forth briskly from the covert and planted himself in the way of the scarlet stranger. The latter had walked so slowly that he was scarce come to their resting-place; and now on beholding Robin he neither slackened nor quickened his pace but sauntered idly straight ahead, looking to the right and to the left, with the finest air in the world, but never once at Robin.
“Hold!” quoth the outlaw. “What mean ye by running thus over a wayfarer, rough shod?”
“Wherefore should I hold, good fellow?” said the stranger in a smooth voice, and looking at Robin for the first time.
“Because I bid you to,” replied Robin.
“And who may you be?” asked the other as coolly as you please.