od sword and his holy cross:
Now cast on flowers fresh and green;

"And as they fall, shed tears and say,
Wella, wella-day! wella, wella-day:
Thus cast ye flowers and sing,
And on to Wakefield take your way."

After his demise poor Marion is so tormented by her royal persecutor
that she seeks refuge in Dunmow Abbey, where she is poisoned by the
king's order. In each play the outlaw is extolled so highly, and made so
admirable in every way, that in spite of the quaintness one is moved to
honest admiration. His dying scene is most pathetic, and there is no
doubt that the simple country audience would weep as though for a dearly
loved friend.

The airs pertaining to the Robin Hood literature are merry in the
extreme--delicious, sparkling waves of melody, to which thousands of
country dances have been performed. They sprang from the heart, and
even to-day, if offered to the public, might win popular success. All
are "lusty fellows with good backbones", such as Shakespeare in his
salad days must have listened to and admired. Gay, in his pastoral _The
Flights_, gives a charming picture of Bowzybeus delighting the reapers
with one of these ballads, ere falling asleep midst happy laughter.

In folklore are still preserved a few relics. "To go round by Robin
Hood's barn" is to travel in a roundabout fashion, and "to sell Robin
Hood's pennyworths", to sell much below value, as a generous robber
might. His "feather" is the Traveller's Joy, his "hatband" the
club-moss. His "men" or his "sheep" are the bracken, and his "wind" a
wind that brings on a thaw. We are told that Robin could stand anything
but a "tho wind". The Red Campion, the Ragged Robin, and the Herb Robert
are known in several counties by his name. His greatest claim to
popularity was that he took away the goods of none save rich men, never
killed any person except in self-defence, charitably fed the poor, and
was in short, as an old writer tells us, "the most humane and the prince
of robbers".

WELBECK ABBEY

The present house of Welbeck was built upon the site of an abbey for
Premonstratensian canons, which was begun in 1140. Nothing, however,
remains of the old place save some stonework in the cellars and a few
inner walls. A portion of the house dates from 1604; in an engraving
from the great Duke of Newcastle's book on Horsemanship we find that it
originally bore some resemblance to a French chateau. Charles the First
and Hen