erily soundeth the hunter's horn,
Its clarion blast so fine;
Through depths of old Sherwood so clearly borne,
We hear it at eve and at break of morn,
Of Robin Hood's band the sign.
A hunting we will go,
Tra-ra-ra-tra-ra!
We'll chase for the roe,
Tra-ra-ra-tra-ra!
Oh where is band so jolly
As Robin's band in their Lincoln green?
Their life is naught but folly,
A rollicking life I ween!

Now the merry men gathered about their fire, and while the old monk
was broiling the meat, they all lounged about in comfortable ways and
Little John sang to them:

And it's will ye quaff with me, my lads,
And it's will ye quaff with me?
It is a draught of nut-brown ale
I offer unto ye.
All humming in the tankard, lads,
It cheers the heart forlorn;
Oh! here's a friend to everyone,
'Tis stout John Barley-corn.

So laugh, lads, and quaff, lads!
'Twill make you stout and hale,
Through all my days I'll sing the praise
Of brown October ale!

While the outlaws were lounging thus, in came the Sheriff, Sir Guy,
the spurious Earl, and a lot of journeymen tinkers. Immediately they
began a gay chorus, telling how they were men of such metal that no
can or kettle can withstand their attack, and as they hammered upon
their tin pans, one believed them. Of all the merriment and nonsense
that ever was, the most infectious took place there in the forest,
while the tinkers sang and hammered, and Friar Tuck made jokes, and
the other outlaws drank their brown October ale: but soon Maid Marian,
the dainty cavalier, wandered that way, looking for Robin Hood--Robert
of Huntingdon. She had missed him dreadfully, and finally could not
refrain from going in search of him. She was certain she should find
him thinking of her and as true to her as she was to him.

Robin Hood found that she had come to the forest, and sang to her a
serenade which was overheard by the other outlaws. Alan-a-Dale, who
was in love, became jealous, and the Sheriff came on to the scene, and
the outlaws, finding him on their ground, took him prisoner, and Dame
Durden, who secretly had been married to the Sheriff, and from whose
shrewish tongue the Sheriff had fled, came to free him. She declared
that if the Sheriff of Nottingham would acknowledge her, she would get
him free from the stocks, into which the outlaws had pu