and lose,
His life is safe for me;
But a heavy penance he shall do
Beneath the greenwood tree!"

"O tarry yet!" quoth Charlie Wood,
"O tarry, master mine!
It's ill to shear a yearling hog,
Or twist the wool of swine!

"It's ill to make a bonny silk purse
From the ear of a bristly boar;
It's ill to provoke a shaveling's curse,
When the way lies him before.

"I've walked the forest for twenty years,
In wet weather and dry,
And never stopped a good fellowe,
Who had no coin to buy.

"What boots it to search a beggarman's bags,
When no silver groat he has?
So, master mine, I rede you well,
E'en let the friar pass!"

"Now cease thy prate," quoth Little John,
"Thou japest but in vain;
An he have not a groat within his pouch,
We may find a silver chain.

"But were he as bare as a new-flayed buck,
As truly he may be,
He shall not tread the Sherwood shaws
Without the leave of me!"

Little John has taken his arrows and bow,
His sword and buckler strong,
And lifted up his quarter-staff,
Was full three cloth yards long.

And he has left his merry men
At the trysting-tree behind,
And gone into the gay greenwood,
This burly frere to find.

O'er holt and hill, through brake and brere,
He took his way alone--
Now, Lordlings, list and you shall hear
This geste of Little John.

FYTTE THE SECOND.

'Tis merry, 'tis merry in gay greenwood,
When the little birds are singing,
When the buck is belling in the fern,
And the hare from the thicket springing!

'Tis merry to hear the waters clear,
As they splash in the pebbly fall;
And the ouzel whistling to his mate,
As he lights on the stones so small.

But small pleasaunce took Little John
In all he heard and saw;
Till he reached the cave of a hermit old
Who wonned within the shaw.

"_Ora pro nobis_!" quoth Little John--
His Latin was somewhat rude--
"Now, holy father, hast thou seen
A frere within the wood?

"By his scarlet hose, and his ruddy nose,
I guess you may know him well;
And he wears on his head a hat so red,
And a monstrous scallop-shell."

"I have served Saint Pancras," the hermit said,
"In this cell for thirty year,
Yet never saw I, in the forest bounds,
The face of such a frere!

"An' if ye find him, master mine,
E'en take an old man's advice,
An' raddle him well, till he roar again,
Lest ye fail to meet him twice!"

"Trust me for that!" quoth Little John--
"Tr