FITZ.  Down, sirrah, down! whither, a knave’s name, climb you?

MUCH.  A plague on ye for a blind sinksanker![235] would I were your match.  You are much blind, i’faith, can hit so right.

Enter LITTLE JOHN.

LIT.  JOHN.  What, Master Warman, are ye come to yield
A true account for your false stewardship?

    Enter SCARLET and SCATHLOCK.

SCATH.  Much, if thou mean’st to get a hundred pound,
Present us to the Shrieve of Nottingham.

MUCH.  Mass, I think there was such proclamation. 
Come, my small fellow John,
You shall have half, and therefore bring in one.

LIT.  JOHN.  No, my big fellow, honest Master Much,
Take all unto yourself:  I’ll be no half.

MUCH.  Then stand:  you shall be the two thieves, and I’ll be the presenter.  O Master Shrieve of Nottingham, When ears unto my tidings came,[236] (I’ll speak in prose, I miss this verse vilely) that Scathlock and Scarlet were arrested by Robin Hood, my master, and Little John, my fellow, and Much, his servant, and taken from you, Master Shrieve, being well forward in the hanging way, wherein ye now are (and God keep ye in the same), and also that you, Master Shrieve, would give any man in town, city, or country a hundred pound of lawful arrant[237] money of England, that would bring the same two thieves, being these two; now I, the said Much, challenge of you the said Shrieve, bringing them, the same money.

SCAR.  Faith, he cannot pay thee, Much.

MUCH.  Ay, but while this end is in my hand, and that about his neck, he is bound to it.

    Enter ROBIN, ELY, MARIAN.

WAR.  Mock on, mock on:  make me your jesting game. 
I do deserve much more than this small shame.

ROB.  H. Disconsolate and poor dejected man,
Cast from thy neck that shameful sign of death,
And live for me, if thou amend thy life,
As much in favour as thou ever didst.

WAR.  O, worse than any death,
When a man wrong’d his wronger pitieth!

ELY.  Warman, be comforted, rise and amend: 
On my word, Robin Hood will be thy friend.

ROB.  H. I will indeed:  go in, heart-broken man. 
Father Fitzwater, pray lead him in. 
Kind Marian, with sweet comforts comfort him,
And my tall yeomen, as you me affect,
Upbraid him not with his forepassed life. 
Warman, go in; go in and comfort thee.

WAR.  O, God requite your honour’s courtesy.

MAR.  Scathlock or Scarlet, help us, some of ye.

    [Exeunt WARMAN, MARIAN, FITZWATER, SCATHLOCK, SCARLET, MUCH.

    Enter FRIAR TUCK in his truss, without his weed.

FRIAR.  Jesu benedicite! 
       Pity on pity,
       Mercy on mercy,
       Misery on misery! 
       O, such a sight,
       As by this light,
       Doth me affright?

ROB.  H. Tell us the matter, prythee, holy Friar.