Here were different sights from what one saw in the forest; hedgerows, broad fields of barley corn, pasture lands rolling upward till they met the sky and all dotted over with flocks of white sheep, hayfields whence came the odor of new-mown hay that lay in smooth swathes over which skimmed the swifts in rapid flight; such they saw, and different was it, I wot, from the tangled depths of the sweet woodlands, but full as fair.

Thus Robin led his band, walking blithely with chest thrown out and head thrown back, snuffing the odors of the gentle breeze that came drifting from over the hayfields.
"Truly," quoth he, "the dear world is as fair here as in the woodland shades.

Who calls it a vale of tears?
Methinks it is but the darkness in our minds that bringeth gloom to the world.

For what sayeth that merry song thou singest, Little John?
Is it not thus?
"_For when my love's eyes do thine, do thine, And when her lips smile so rare, The day it is jocund and fine, so fine, Though let it be wet or be fair And when the stout ale is all flowing so fast, Our sorrows and troubles are things of the past_." "Nay," said Friar Tuck piously, "ye do think of profane things and of nought else; yet, truly, there be better safeguards against care and woe than ale drinking and bright eyes, to wit, fasting and meditation.

Look upon me, have I the likeness of a sorrowful man ?" At this a great shout of laughter went up from all around, for the night before the stout Friar had emptied twice as many canakins of ale as any one of all the merry men.
"Truly," quoth Robin, when he could speak for laughter, "I should say that thy sorrows were about equal to thy goodliness." So they stepped along, talking, singing, jesting, and laughing, until they had come to a certain little church that belonged to the great estates owned by the rich Priory of Emmet.