"Welcome, sir knight, welcome. I am right glad to see you. I have awaited you fasting, sir, for the last three hours."
"God save thee, good Robin, and all thy fair company," returned the knight pleasantly.
Robin brought clear water from the well for the guest to wash himself from the dust of travel, and then they sat down to dinner. The meal was spread under the trees in the greenwood, and rarely had the stranger seen a repast so amply furnished. Bread and wine they had in plenty, and dainty portions of deer, swans and pheasants, plump and tender, and all kinds of water-fowl from the river, and every sort of woodland bird that was good for eating.
Robin heaped his guest's plate with choice morsels, and bade him fall to merrily.
"Eat well, sir knight, eat well," he urged him.
"Thanks, thanks," said the knight. "I have not had such a dinner as this for three weeks. If I come again into this country, Robin, I will make as good a dinner for you as you have made for me."
"Thanks for my dinner, good knight, when I have it," returned the outlaw. "I was never so greedy as to crave for dinner. But before you go, would it not be seemly for you to pay for what you have eaten? It was never the custom for a yeoman to pay for a knight."
"I have nothing in my coffers that I can proffer, for shame," said the knight.
"Go, Little John, and look," said Robin. "Now swear to me that you are telling the truth," he added to his guest.
"I swear to you, by heaven, I have no more than ten shillings," said the knight.