[Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock]@TWC D-Link bookMaid Marian CHAPTER VII 2/5
Matilda told him the whole history of Gamwell feast, and of their battle on the bridge, which had its origin in a design of the sheriff of Nottingham to take one of the foresters into custody. "Ay! ay!" said the baron, "and I guess who that forester was; but truly this friar is a desperate fellow.
I did not think there could have been so much valour under a grey frock.
And so you wounded the knight in the arm.
You are a wild girl, Mawd,--a chip of the old block, Mawd.
A wild girl, and a wild friar, and three or four foresters, wild lads all, to keep a bridge against a tame knight, and a tame sheriff, and fifty tame varlets; by this light, the like was never heard! But do you know, Mawd, you must not go about so any more, sweet Mawd: you must stay at home, you must ensconce; for there is your tame sheriff on the one hand, that will take you perforce; and there is your wild forester on the other hand, that will take you without any force at all, Mawd: your wild forester, Robin, cousin Robin, Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest, that beats and binds bishops, spreads nets for archbishops, and hunts a fat abbot as if he were a buck: excellent game, no doubt, but you must hunt no more in such company.
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