"You come too late," said Robin. "The Virgin, your surety, has been before you and paid your debt. The holy monks of St. Mary, her almoners, have brought it. They paid well, indeed; they paid double. Four hundred is my due, the other four hundred is yours. Take it, my good friend, our Lady sends it, and dwell henceforth in a state befitting your knightly station." Once more the good knight, Sir Richard of the Lee, dined with Robin Hood, and merry went the feast that day under the greenwood tree. The leaves of Sherwood still laugh with the mirth that then shook their bowery arches. Robin Hood dwells there no more, but the memory of the mighty archer and his merry men still haunts the woodland glades, and will while a lover of romance dwells in England's island realm. _WALLACE, THE HERO OF SCOTLAND._ On a summer's day, many centuries ago, a young gentleman of Scotland was fishing in the river Irvine, near Ayr, attended by a boy who carried his fishing-basket. The young man was handsome of face, tall of figure, and strongly built, while his skill as an angler was attested by the number of trout which lay in the boy's basket. While he was thus engaged several English soldiers, from the garrison of Ayr, came up to the angler, and with the insolence with which these invaders were then in the habit of treating the Scotch, insisted on taking the basket and its contents from the boy. "You ask too much," said Wallace, quietly. "You are welcome to a part of the fish, but you cannot have them all." "That we will," answered the soldiers. "That you will not," retorted the youth. "I have other business than to play fisherman for your benefit." The soldiers insisted, and attempted to take the basket. The angler came to the aid of his attendant. Words were followed by blows. The soldiers laid hands on their weapons. The youth had no weapon but his fishing-rod. But with the butt end of this he struck the foremost Englishman so hard a blow under his ear that he stretched him dead upon the ground. Seizing the man's sword, which had fallen from his hand, he attacked the others with such skill and fury that they were put to flight, and the bold angler was enabled to take his fish safely home. The name of the courageous youth was William Wallace. He was the son of a private gentleman, called Wallace of Ellerslie, who had brought up his boy to the handling of warlike weapons, until he had grown an adept in their use; and also to a hatred of the English, which was redoubled by the insolence of the soldiers with whom Edward I. of England had garrisoned the country. Like all high-spirited Scotchmen, the young man viewed with indignation the conduct of the conquerors of his country, and expressed the intensity of his feeling in the tragical manner above described.