The boy retired to his little bed, the wife trimmed the lamp, the husband heaped logs upon the fire: Robin broached another flask; and Marian filled the baron's cup, and sweetened Robin's by touching its edge with her lips.
"Well," said the baron, "give me a roof over my head, be it never so humble.

Your greenwood canopy is pretty and pleasant in sunshine; but if I were doomed to live under it, I should wish it were water-tight." "But," said Robin, "we have tents and caves for foul weather, good store of wine and venison, and fuel in abundance." "Ay, but," said the baron, "I like to pull off my boots of a night, which you foresters seldom do, and to ensconce myself thereafter in a comfortable bed.

Your beech-root is over-hard for a couch, and your mossy stump is somewhat rough for a bolster." "Had you not dry leaves," said Robin, "with a bishop's surplice over them?
What would you have softer?
And had you not an abbot's travelling cloak for a coverlet?
What would you have warmer ?" "Very true," said the baron, "but that was an indulgence to a guest, and I dreamed all night of the sheriff of Nottingham.

I like to feel myself safe," he added, stretching out his legs to the fire, and throwing himself back in his chair with the air of a man determined to be comfortable.

"I like to feel myself safe," said the baron.
At that moment the woman caught her husband's arm, and all the party following the direction of her eyes, looked simultaneously to the window, where they had just time to catch a glimpse of an apparition of an armed head, with its plumage tossing in the storm, on which the light shone from within, and which disappeared immediately..