in Northamptonshire; and
the next at Bedford Town; and the next at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire.
This place they left not long after the middle of the night, and
traveling fast through the tender dawning of the summer day, when the
dews lay shining on the meadows and faint mists hung in the dales,
when the birds sang their sweetest and the cobwebs beneath the hedges
glimmered like fairy cloth of silver, they came at last to the towers
and walls of famous London Town, while the morn was still young and all
golden toward the east.

Queen Eleanor sat in her royal bower, through the open casements of
which poured the sweet yellow sunshine in great floods of golden light.
All about her stood her ladies-in-waiting chatting in low voices, while
she herself sat dreamily where the mild air came softly drifting into
the room laden with the fresh perfumes of the sweet red roses that
bloomed in the great garden beneath the wall. To her came one who said
that her page, Richard Partington, and four stout yeomen waited her
pleasure in the court below. Then Queen Eleanor arose joyously and bade
them be straightway shown into her presence.

Thus Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale came
before the Queen into her own royal bower. Then Robin kneeled before the
Queen with his hands folded upon his breast, saying in simple phrase,
"Here am I, Robin Hood. Thou didst bid me come, and lo, I do thy
bidding. I give myself to thee as thy true servant, and will do thy
commanding, even if it be to the shedding of the last drop of my life's
blood."

But good Queen Eleanor smiled pleasantly upon him, bidding him to arise.
Then she made them all be seated to rest themselves after their long
journey. Rich food was brought them and noble wines, and she had her
own pages to wait upon the wants of the yeomen. At last, after they
had eaten all they could, she began questioning them of their merry
adventures. Then they told her all of the lusty doings herein spoken of,
and among others that concerning the Bishop of Hereford and Sir Richard
of the Lea, and how the Bishop had abided three days in Sherwood Forest.
At this, the Queen and the ladies about her laughed again and again, for
they pictured to themselves the stout Bishop abiding in the forest and
ranging the woods in lusty sport with Robin and his band. Then, when
they had told all that they could bring to mind, the Queen asked Allan
to sing to her, for his fame as a minstre