"We will see," answered Robin Hood. "But she is to be married in two days." "Then we will go to the church and see that she is married to you instead of the old knight. But we will need to find a priest who will marry you." "Then I know the very priest," said Will Scarlet. "It is jolly Friar Tuck who lives in Fountain Dale." "Then let us go and get him at once. We have no time to lose," said Robin Hood; and out they started without delay. Little John, Will Scarlet, young David of Doncaster, and Arthur-a-Bland went with him. They wore their best clothes. "For," said Robin Hood, "we must look brave when we go to a wedding." After they had walked a whole morning, they came to the bend in the river beyond which Friar Tuck dwelt. But his cell was across the river and to get to it they would have to wade through. "Well," said Robin Hood, "had I known I would have to wade the river I would not have put on my best clothes." Then he left his men, bidding them listen if his bugle should sound, and went on alone. As soon as he was out of sight of them, he thought he heard voices. There seemed to be two men talking on the river bank below, but the voices were wondrously alike. Robin Hood slipped to the edge and looked over. With his broad back against a willow tree, sat a stout, brawny fellow in the robe of a friar, but no other man was by. He held a great pie in his lap, made of tender, juicy meats, compounded with young onions and other toothsome vegetables, which he munched at sturdily. As he ate he talked, and, listening to him, Robin Hood almost died of laughing. For the merry friar was pretending to be two people. He would offer a piece of the pasty first to his right hand and then to his left, with much politeness, and go through the same actions with a bottle of drink that he had. Robin looked and listened till the pie was all gone and the bottle empty. Then the monk began to urge his imaginary companion to sing. "Now, sweet lad," he said to himself, "canst thou not tune me a song?" And then he answered himself bashfully. "La, I know not. I am but in ill voice this day. Prythee, ask me not: dost thou not hear how I croak like a frog?" Then he spoke again as the first one. "Nay, nay, thy voice is as sweet as any bullfinch. Come sing, prythee. I would rather hear thee sing than eat a fair feast." And so it went on till he began singing and that was as two persons, too. The song he sang was a duet between a youth and a maid, and he sung the maiden's part very high and squeaky and the youth's very deep and gruff. It was the funniest thing you can imagine, and when the last chorus was reached Robin Hood could hold in no more but joined in with the singing lustily. Then the friar leaped forth, crying, "What spy have we here?" and from beneath his monk's robe he drew forth a sword as heavy and stout as any that Robin Hood's band carried.