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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: OUR SECOND MEETING. ROBIN HOOD AND ALLEN-A-DALE. On the next evening, when I took my seat beneath the sycamore, I found that it was surrounded by no less than six of my school-fellows; so popular had been the legends of Robin Hood with my hearers of the previous day. I was mightily pleased at this, and with renewed confidence began the following tale: -- " Shortly after the accession of Will Scarlet to his company, Robin Hood was one morning roaming through the forest, when he beheld a young man, very elegantly dressed in crimson silk, skipping merrily over the green plain, singing a roundelay; his face was lighted up with gladness, and his heart seemed overflowing with joy. " On the very next morning Robin Hood againA Lover's Grief. 35 encountered the same youth. All his finery was gone. He wore a russet suit, and his countenance was overspread with melancholy. He walked slowly, absorbed in meditation, and now and then broke out into exclamations of the keenest grief. The outlaw's heart was moved. ' What can have caused this sudden change, ' he said to himself: 'perhaps I may relieve his sorrows;' and emerging from the grove he stood before the young man's path. "' What ailest thou my friend ?' he said to him; ' but yesterday thou wert as gay as a lark, and today as thou wert at a funeral.' " ' Why dost thou ask ?' said the youth: ' thou canst not help me in my distress.' "' I have a hundred as good yeomen as ever drew bow in the green-wood, ' replied the outlaw, ' that will do my bidding as I list.' "' Lend me thine aid, ' cried the young man eagerly, ' and I'll be thy true servant for ever. My name is Allen-a-Dale. But yesterday I was to have wedded the fairest maiden upon whom the sun ever shone. To-day she is taken from me, and will be forced to marry a ...