The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Will you come with me, sweet Reader? I thank you. Give me your hand.

He who jumps for the moon and gets it not leaps higher than he who stoops for a penny in the mud.

So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in time to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten.

You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath not to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you.

What is done is done; and the cracked egg cannot be cured.

(H)ope, be it never so faint, bringeth a gleam into darkness, like a little rushlight that costeth but a groat.

It doth make a man better,' quoth Robin Hood, 'to bear of those noble men so long ago. When one doth list to such tales, his soul doth say, 'put by thy poor little likings and seek to do likewise.' Truly, one may not do as nobly one's self, but in the striving one is better...

An I must drink sour ale, I must, but never have I yielded to a man before, and that without would or mark upon my body. Nor, when I bethink me, will I yield now.

Let us e'er be merry while we may, for man is but dust, and he hath but a span to live here till the worm getteth him, as our good gossip Swanthold sayeth; so let life be merry while it lasts, say I.

When the flood cometh it sweepeth away grain as well as chaff.

You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you

Now there was no sign of any foul weather, but when one wishes to do a thing . . . one finds no lack of reasons for the doing.

Gaffer Swanthold speaks truth when he saith, 'Better a crust with content than honey with a sour heart.

So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in tome to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten.

Then all was quiet save only for the low voices of those that talked together, ... , and saving, also, for the mellow snoring of Friar Tuck, who enjoyed his sleep with a noise as of one sawing soft wood very slowly.

IN MERRY ENGLAND in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood.

Let me tell you, an I had the shaping of things in this world, ye should all three have been clothed in the finest silks, and ride upon milk-white horses, with pages at your side, and feed upon nothing but whipped cream and strawberries; for such a life would surely befit your looks." At