“O tarry yet!” quoth Charlie Wood,
“O tarry, master mine!
It’s ill to shear a yearling hog,
Or twist the wool of swine!
“It’s ill to make a bonny silk purse
From the ear of a bristly boar;
It’s ill to provoke a shaveling’s curse,
When the way lies him before.
“I’ve walked the forest for twenty years,
In wet weather and dry,
And never stopped a good fellowe,
Who had no coin to buy.
“What boots it to search a beggarman’s bags,
When no silver groat he has?
So, master mine, I rede you well,
E’en let the friar pass!”
“Now cease thy prate,” quoth Little John,
“Thou japest but in vain;
An he have not a groat within his pouch,
We may find a silver chain.
“But were he as bare as a new-flayed buck,
As truly he may be,
He shall not tread the Sherwood shaws
Without the leave of me!”
Little John has taken his arrows and bow,
His sword and buckler strong,
And lifted up his quarter-staff,
Was full three cloth yards long.
And he has left his merry men
At the trysting-tree behind,
And gone into the gay greenwood,
This burly frere to find.
O’er holt and hill, through brake and brere,
He took his way alone—
Now, Lordlings, list and you shall hear
This geste of Little John.