“Why,” said Wamba, “an your valour be so dull, you will please to learn that those honest fellows balance a good deed with one not quite so laudable; as a crown given to a begging friar with an hundred byzants taken from a fat abbot, or a wench kissed in the greenwood with the relief of a poor widow.”
“Which of these was the good deed, which was the felony?” interrupted the Knight.
“A good gibe! a good gibe!” said Wamba; “keeping witty company sharpeneth the apprehension. You said nothing so well, Sir Knight, I will be sworn, when you held drunken vespers with the bluff Hermit.—But to go on. The merry-men of the forest set off the building of a cottage with the burning of a castle—the thatching of a choir against the robbing of a church—the setting free a poor prisoner against the murder of a proud sheriff; or, to come nearer to our point, the deliverance of a Saxon franklin against the burning alive of a Norman baron. Gentle thieves they are, in short, and courteous robbers; but it is ever the luckiest to meet with them when they are at the worst.”
“How so, Wamba?” said the Knight.
“Why, then they have some compunction, and are for making up matters with Heaven. But when they have struck an even balance, Heaven help them with whom they next open the account! The travellers who first met them after their good service at Torquilstone would have a woeful flaying.—And yet,” said Wamba, coming close up to the Knight’s side, “there be companions who are far more dangerous for travellers to meet than yonder outlaws.”
“And who may they be, for you have neither bears nor wolves, I trow?” said the Knight.
“Marry, sir, but we have Malvoisin’s men-at-arms,” said Wamba; “and let me tell you, that, in time of civil war, a halfscore of these is worth a band