There was to be an open-air rehearsal for a Christmas concert, followed by a play depicting "The Merry Life of Robin Hood, the Outlaw of Sherwood Forest".
"Now," quoth Robin, "those of ye who can sing a cheery stave or two, pray join me in the opening chorus. It is called 'Hail, Merry Men', and goes to the tune of 'Hail, Smiling Morn'."
"But we don't know the words, Robin," said Flenton.
Flenton was a tall, strong boy with a somewhat melancholy face, lacking in humour but well-liked by all. As Robin's right-hand man, he was called "Little John", and no boy amongst them could have looked the part more convincingly.
"Of course, thou knowest not the words, Little John, for of a truth it was only yesterday I wrote them. But thou shalt learn them ere long, for here is the parchment on which is written, good and fair, the ballade of which I speak. List, my men, to the first verse, which I will forthwith proceed to sing:
"'Hail, Merry Men, ye Merry Men, ye Merry Men,
With arrows of grey-goose quill,
With arrows of grey-goose quill,
Whose trusty fingers shoot the stag at bay,
Stag at bay, stag at bay,
Whose trusty fingers shoot the stag, the stag—at her—ay!'"
"Good!" said Little John. "I like that. It goes with a swing."
"But we don't shoot stags, Robin," demurred Will Ponder, known in Greenwood fashion as Will Scarlet. "There aren't any round here. Wouldn't rabbits be better?"
"Rabbits, you fathead! I mean, a murrain on thee for thy stupidity," said Robin. "How oft must I tell thee that we are living now—or supposed to be living—in the reign of good King Henry the Second, when stags were plentiful and nobody kept rabbits—that is, nobody wasted arrows on them?"
"Don't mind him, Robin," put in Dave Storm, who, as a frequent student of Robin Hood lore, had insisted on being called "David of Doncaster". "Ponder's mind runs on rabbits—he has some lop-eared bunnies at home, and writes by almost every post to remind the groom to feed them."