Robin took his harp and went to the wedding.
Robin found the bishop and his train in the church porch, impatiently expecting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom.

The clerk was observing to the bishop that the knight was somewhat gouty, and that the necessity of walking the last quarter of a mile from the road to the churchyard probably detained the lively bridegroom rather longer than had been calculated upon.
"Oh! by my fey," said the music-loving bishop, "here comes a harper in the nick of time, and now I care not how long they tarry.

Ho! honest friend, are you come to play at the wedding ?" "I am come to play anywhere," answered Robin, "where I can get a cup of sack; for which I will sing the praise of the donor in lofty verse, and emblazon him with any virtue which he may wish to have the credit of possessing, without the trouble of practising.
"A most courtly harper," said the bishop; "I will fill thee with sack; I will make thee a walking butt of sack, if thou wilt delight my ears with thy melodies." "That will I," said Robin; "in what branch of my art shall I exert my faculty?
I am passing well in all, from the anthem to the glee, and from the dirge to the coranto." "It would be idle," said the bishop, "to give thee sack for playing me anthems, seeing that I myself do receive sack for hearing them sung.
Therefore, as the occasion is festive, thou shalt play me a coranto." Robin struck up and played away merrily, the bishop all the while in great delight, noddling his head, and beating time with his foot, till the bride and bridegroom appeared.

The bridegroom was richly apparelled, and came slowly and painfully forward, hobbling and leering, and pursing up his mouth into a smile of resolute defiance to the gout, and of tender complacency towards his lady love, who, shining like gold at the old knight's expense, followed slowly between her father and mother, her cheeks pale, her head drooping, her steps faltering, and her eyes reddened with tears.
Robin stopped his minstrelsy, and said to the bishop, "This seems to me an unfit match." "What do you say, rascal ?" said the old knight, hobbling up to him.
"I say," said Robin, "this seems to me an unfit match.

What, in the devil's name, can you want with a young wife, who have one foot in flannels and the other in the grave ?" "What is that to thee, sirrah varlet ?" said the old knight; "stand away from the porch, or I will fracture thy sconce with my cane." "I will not stand away from the porch," said Robin, "unless the bride bid me, and tell me that you are her own true love." "Speak," said the bride's father, in a severe tone, and with a look of significant menace.