‘Will you please to sit down, cousin Robin,
And drink some beer with me?’—
‘No, I will neither eat nor drink
Till I am blooded by thee.’
X
Down then came Dame Priorèss
Down she came in that ilk[1021],
With a pair of blood-irons in her hands,
Were wrappèd all in silk.
XI
‘Set a chafing-dish to the fire,’ she said,
‘And strip thou up thy sleeve.’
—I hold him but an unwise man
That will no warning ’leeve[1022]!
XII
She laid the blood-irons to Robin’s vein,
Alack, the more pitye!
And pierc’d the vein, and let out the blood
That full red was to see.
XIII
And first it bled the thick, thick blood,
And afterwards the thin,
And well then wist good Robin Hood
Treason there was within.