Pareille aventure arriva à Robin Hood.
What is in your cofers? sayd Robyn,
Trewe than tell thou me.
Syr, he sayd, twenty marke,
Al so mote I the.
Yf there be no more, sayd Robyn,
I will not one peny;
Yf thou hast myster of ony more,
Syr, more I shall lende to the;
And yf I fynde more, sayd Robyn,
I wys thou shalte it forgone;
For of thy spendynge sylver, monk,
Therof wyll I ryght none.
Go nowe forthe, Lyttell Johan,
And the trouth telle thou me;
If there be no more but twenty marke,
No peny that I se.
Lytell Johan spred his mantell downe,
As he had done before,
And he tolde out of the monkes male
Eyght hundreth pounde and more.
(A lyttel geste of Robyn Hode. The fourth fytte, v. 153. Robin Hood, etc., by Joseph Ritson. London: William Pickering, etc., 1832, petit in-8o, tome I, p. 44.)
Page 64, vers 1756 et 1757.
Ces vers sont imparfaits de quelques mots qui ont été grattés dans le Ms.
Page 64, vers 1768.