business, Robin
turned once more to the youth. "Now, lad," said he, "tell us thy
troubles, and speak freely. A flow of words doth ever ease the heart of
sorrows; it is like opening the waste weir when the mill dam is
overfull. Come, sit thou here beside me, and speak at thine ease."

Then straightway the youth told the three yeomen all that was in his
heart; at first in broken words and phrases, then freely and with
greater ease when he saw that all listened closely to what he said. So
he told them how he had come from York to the sweet vale of Rother,
traveling the country through as a minstrel, stopping now at castle, now
at hall, and now at farmhouse; how he had spent one sweet evening in a
certain broad, low farmhouse, where he sang before a stout franklin and
a maiden as pure and lovely as the first snowdrop of spring; how he had
played and sung to her, and how sweet Ellen o' the Dale had listened to
him and had loved him. Then, in a low, sweet voice, scarcely louder
than a whisper, he told how he had watched for her and met her now and
then when she went abroad, but was all too afraid in her sweet presence
to speak to her, until at last, beside the banks of Rother, he had
spoken of his love, and she had whispered that which had made his
heartstrings quiver for joy. Then they broke a sixpence between them,
and vowed to be true to one another forever.

Next he told how her father had discovered what was a-doing, and had
taken her away from him so that he never saw her again, and his heart
was sometimes like to break; how this morn, only one short month and a
half from the time that he had seen her last, he had heard and knew it
to be so, that she was to marry old Sir Stephen of Trent, two days
hence, for Ellen's father thought it would be a grand thing to have his
daughter marry so high, albeit she wished it not; nor was it wonder that
a knight should wish to marry his own sweet love, who was the most
beautiful maiden in all the world.

To all this the yeomen listened in silence, the clatter of many voices,
jesting and laughing, sounding around them, and the red light of the
fire shining on their faces and in their eyes. So simple were the poor
boy's words, and so deep his sorrow, that even Little John felt a
certain knotty lump rise in his throat.

"I wonder not," said Robin, after a moment's silence, "that thy true
love loved thee, for thou hast surely a silver cross beneath thy tongue,
even like good Saint