Onward they walked with song and jest and
laughter till noontide was passed, when at last they came to the banks
of a wide, glassy, and lily-padded stream. Here a broad, beaten path
stretched along beside the banks, on which path labored the horses that
tugged at the slow-moving barges, laden with barley meal or what not,
from the countryside to the many-towered town. But now, in the hot
silence of the midday, no horse was seen nor any man besides themselves.
Behind them and before them stretched the river, its placid bosom
ruffled here and there by the purple dusk of a small breeze.
"Now, good uncle," quoth Will Scarlet at last, when they had walked for
a long time beside this sweet, bright river, "just beyond yon bend ahead
of us is a shallow ford which in no place is deeper than thy mid-thigh,
and upon the other side of the stream is a certain little hermitage
hidden amidst the bosky tangle of the thickets wherein dwelleth the
Friar of Fountain Dale. Thither will I lead thee, for I know the way;
albeit it is not overhard to find."
"Nay," quoth jolly Robin, stopping suddenly, "had I thought that I
should have had to wade water, even were it so crystal a stream as this,
I had donned other clothes than I have upon me.
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