"Give him two hundred pounds more," said the Justiciar to the rich man, "and keep the lands yourself."
"No," cried the Knight, "not if you offered me a thousand pounds would I do it. No one here shall be heir of mine." Then he strode up to a table and emptied out four hundred pounds. "Take your gold which you lent to me a year agone," he said. "Had you but received me civilly, I would have paid you something more."
Then he passed out of the hall singing merrily and rode back to his house, where his wife met him at the gate.
He went forth full merrily singing, As men have told in tale; His lady met him at the gate, At home in Wierysdale.
"Welcome, my lord," said his lady; "Sir, lost is all your good." "Be merry, dame," said the Knight, "And pray for Robin Hood."
Then he told how Robin Hood had befriended him, and how he had redeemed his lands, and finished his tale by praising the outlaw. "But for his kindness," he said, "we had been beggars."
After this the Knight dwelt at home, looking after his lands and saving his money carefully, till the four hundred pounds lay ready for Robin Hood. Then he bought a hundred bows and a hundred arrows, and every arrow was an ell long, and had a head of silver and peacock's feathers. And clothing himself in white and red, and with a hundred men in his train, he set off to Sherwood Forest.
On the way he passed an open space near a bridge where there was a wrestling, and the Knight stopped and looked, for he himself had taken many a prize in that sport. Here the prizes were such as to fill any man with envy: a fine horse, saddled and bridled, a great white bull, a pair of gloves, and a ring of bright, red gold.
There was not a yeoman present who did not hope to win one of them. But when the wrestling was over, the yeoman who had beaten them all was a man who kept apart from his fellows and was said to think much of himself.
Therefore the men grudged him his skill, and set upon him with blows, and would have killed him had not the Knight, for love of Robin Hood, taken pity on him, while his followers fought with the crowd, and would not suffer them to touch the prizes a better man had won.