Monceux glared at the speaker, a handsome lad dressed gaily in page's costume. The Sheriff's frown would have frightened most people, but the dark-haired boy only laughed and tossed his head in a queerly fascinating way. The Sheriff, relaxing, held out his goblet, and smiled back upon the page.
"Well done, Master Gilbert of Blois!" cried Robin, who sat at the Sheriff's left hand. "Now tell me how you discovered me, and I will love you——"
The lad blushed furiously. "I knew you from the first, Robin o' th' Hood," he answered, defiantly.
"In truth?" questioned Robin, slily, and with his own suspicions growing. No wonder he had seen nothing of Marian in Nottingham town.
"In truth—well, no," submitted the page. "Let me fill your tankard, friend. But very soon I did discover you. Is this the stag that you killed, Robin o' th' Hood?" he added, innocently.
Robin nodded; and the Sheriff flashed another look of anger upon him. "Sit you beside me, Gilbert," Robin ordered; "I am very fain to have speech with you."
Marian, with her woman's intuition, knew from his tone that she also was discovered. Yet she braved it out. "I will fill all the cups, Robin o' th' Hood," she said, firmly, with an adorable little shake of her black curls; "then will hear your adventures as a Nottingham butcher, which I see you are dying to tell to us."
The page skipped lightly from under Robin's threatening hand, and the merry men laughed loud and long. "He calls you Robin o' th' Hood, master!" cried John Berry, roaring like a bull. For some reason this nick-name tickled him mightily. He kept repeating it in all kinds of tones, and those about him began to laugh also.
"'Tis a very excellent name," said Robin, a little vexed. "A merry name, a man's name, and a name to my heart! I do adopt it from this day; for is not Robin Fitzooth of Locksley dead? My lord the Sheriff can tell you that he is, for he has burned him. Laugh at it, or like it, friends, which you will. But pledge me in it, for I have paid the reckoning."
Little John, Stuteley, and Much rose to their feet together in their hurry to be first. The others were not slow in following them.