"Give me a good stout bow and a fair broad arrow, and if I hit it not, strip me and beat me blue with bowstrings." Then he chose the stoutest bow among them all, next to Robin's own, and a straight gray goose shaft, well-feathered and smooth, and stepping to the mark--while all the band, sitting or lying upon the greensward, watched to see him shoot--he drew the arrow to his cheek and loosed the shaft right deftly, sending it so straight down the path that it clove the mark in the very center.

"Aha!" cried he, "mend thou that if thou canst;" while even the yeomen clapped their hands at so fair a shot.
"That is a keen shot indeed," quoth Robin.

"Mend it I cannot, but mar it I may, perhaps." Then taking up his own good stout bow and nocking an arrow with care, he shot with his very greatest skill.

Straight flew the arrow, and so true that it lit fairly upon the stranger's shaft and split it into splinters.

Then all the yeomen leaped to their feet and shouted for joy that their master had shot so well.
"Now by the lusty yew bow of good Saint Withold," cried the stranger, "that is a shot indeed, and never saw I the like in all my life before! Now truly will I be thy man henceforth and for aye.