undred customers is as plentiful and as marketable as ever.
But, sirrahs, I'll none of your balderdash. You pass not hence without
clink of brass, or I'll knock your musical noddles together till
they ring like a pair of cymbals. That will be a new tune for your
minstrelships."

This friendly speech of the friar ended as they stepped on the opposite
bank. Robin had noticed as they passed that the summer stream was low.

"Why, thou brawling mongrel," said Robin, "that whether thou be thief,
friar, or ferryman, or an ill-mixed compound of all three, passes
conjecture, though I judge thee to be simple thief, what barkest thou
at thus? Villain, there is clink of brass for thee. Dost thou see this
coin? Dost thou hear this music? Look and listen: for touch thou shalt
not: my minstrelship defies thee. Thou shalt carry me on thy back over
the water, and receive nothing but a cracked sconce for thy trouble."

"A bargain," said the friar: "for the water is low, the labour is light,
and the reward is alluring." And he stooped down for Robin, who mounted
his back, and the friar waded with him over the river.

"Now, fine fellow," said the friar, "thou shalt carry me back over the
water, and thou shalt have a cracked sconce for thy trouble."

Robin took the friar on his back, and waded with him into the middle
of the river, when by a dexterous jerk he suddenly flung him off and
plunged him horizontally over head and ears in the water. Robin waded to
shore, and the friar, half swimming and half scrambling, followed.

"Fine fellow, fine fellow," said the friar, "now will I pay thee thy
cracked sconce."

"Not so," said Robin, "I have not earned it: but thou hast earned it,
and shalt have it."

It was not, even in those good old times, a sight of every day to see a
troubadour and a friar playing at single-stick by the side of a river,
each aiming with fell intent at the other's coxcomb. The parties were
both so skilled in attack and defence, that their mutual efforts for a
long time expended themselves in quick and loud rappings on each other's
oaken staves. At length Robin by a dexterous feint contrived to score
one on the friar's crown: but in the careless moment of triumph a
splendid sweep of the friar's staff struck Robin's out of his hand into
the middle of the river, and repaid his crack on the head with a degree
of vigour that might have passed the bounds of a jest if Marian had not
retarded its descent by catching the fr