"To full hands, mayhap," said the knight; "but I dare not, for very shame, proffer you what is in my coffers." "Is it so little, then?" "Ten shillings is not wealth," said the knight. "I can offer you no more." "Faith, if that be all, keep it, in God's name; and I'll lend you more, if you be in need. Go look, Little John; we take no stranger's word in the greenwood." John examined the knight's effects, and reported that he had told the truth. Robin gazed curiously at his guest. "I held you for a knight of high estate," he said. "A heedless husbandman you must have been, a gambler or wassailer, to have brought yourself to this sorry pass. An empty pocket and threadbare attire ill befit a knight of your parts." "You wrong me, Robin," said the knight, sadly. "Misfortune, not sin, has beggared me. I have nothing left but my children and my wife; but it is through no deed of my own. My son--my heir he should have been--slew a knight of Lancashire and his squire. To save him from the law I have made myself a beggar. Even my lands and house must go, for I have pledged them to the abbot of St. Mary as surety for four hundred pounds loaned me. I cannot pay him, and the time is near its end. I have lost hope, good sir, and am on my way to the sea, to take ship for the Holy Land. Pardon my tears, I leave a wife and children." "Where are your friends?" asked Robin. "Where are the last year's leaves of your trees?" asked the knight. "They were fair enough while the summer sun shone; they dropped from me when the winter of trouble came." "Can you not borrow the sum?" asked Robin. "Not a groat," answered the knight. "I have no more credit than a beggar." "Mayhap not with the usurers," said Robin. "But the greenwood is not quite bare, and your face, Sir Knight, is your pledge of faith. Go to my treasury, Little John, and see if it will not yield four hundred pounds." "I can promise you that, and more if need be," answered the woodman. "But our worthy knight is poorly clad, and we have rich cloths to spare, I wot. Shall we not add a livery to his purse?" "As you will, good fellow, and forget not a horse, for our guest's mount is of the sorriest." The knight's sorrow gave way to hope as he saw the eagerness, of the generous woodmen. Little John's count of the money added ample interest; the cloths were measured with a bow-stick for a yard, and a palfrey was added to the courser, to bear their welcome gifts. In the end Robin lent him Little John for a squire, and gave him twelve months in which to repay his loan. Away he went, no longer a knight of rueful countenance. "Nowe as the knight went on his way, This game he thought full good, When he looked on Bernysdale He blyssed Robin Hode; "And when he thought on Bernysdale, On Scathelock, Much, and John, He blyssed them for the best company That ever he in come."