Sir Richard replied briefly. "Show me your warrant, Sir Malapert, and I will consider it," he said, from within the gates. And Master Monceux had no warrant with him.
"My word is enough for you, Richard of the Lee," roared he, furiously. "Am I not Sheriff of Nottingham?"
"You cannot be the Sheriff of Nottingham, good man," answered the knight, getting ready to close the wicket, "for he is Master Monceux, and is busy escorting the Princess of Aragon towards York. Go to and mend your manners, rascal, and call away these ruffians with you."
Then Sir Richard snapped to the wicket gate, and returned to Robin. "Well met, bold Robin," he cried, taking him by both hands. "Well met, indeed. I had intended to ride forth this very day to your home in the woods, to pay you your moneys with my thanks added thereto; but you have happily saved me and mine the journey. Welcome to my castle, recovered to me by your generosity."
Sir Richard presented his wife to Robin, and his son, who had but just returned from the Holy Land. The knight told him how the last few months had been most prosperous with him, instead of going so badly as he had feared; and explained that now, from one source and another, he was as rich as of yore. "So when we have feasted I will take you to my treasury, and there count you out thy money and its interest faithfully. Yet in ridding myself of this debt I do not free my life of the obligation."
LITTLE JOHN SINGS A SONG AT THE BANQUET
That evening, whilst Monceux raged and stormed without, they all sat to a great feast.
"You need say no more, Sir Richard," interposed Robin. "'Tis we who owe all to you. As for your debt, why, it hath been repaid me already by my lord of Hereford. Is it not so, Stuteley?"
The little esquire protested solemnly that the Bishop had paid it to them as conscience-money. "Then I will pay it again," cried the knight, cheerfully, "sooner than be outdone by a Bishop in the matter of honesty; and I have a few presents for you, but these I will show you later."
Robin thanked him gratefully, and, taking him on one side, told how boy's clothes were covering Mistress Marian and Dame Fennel at this instant. Would the knight's wife take charge of them, and find them some apparel as would ease one of them at least from most uneasy feelings?