Tarmagant of them all.  With all our hearts, jolly Robin, said the keepers to him; so putting up their swords and on their doublets, they went to Nottingham, where for three days space they followed the pipes of sack, and butts of claret without intermission, and drank themselves good friends.”

The story of “George-a-Green,” the brave Pindar of Wakefield is very similar to that of Robin Hood.  George was as fond as his more noted friend of giving and taking hard knocks, and it is his skilful and judicious use of the quarter-staff in fulfilling the duties of his office, which gives rise to the incidents of the story.  A curious relic of chivalry appears in the passage where Robin Hood the outlaw, and George a-Green the pound-keeper, meet to decide with their quarter-staves the relative merit of their sweethearts.[30]

Of the stories relating to the yeomanry the most important was the “Pleasant Historic of Thomas of Reading; or, The Sixe Worthie Yeomen of the West,” by Thomas Deloney, a famous ballad-maker of the 16th century.  It is the narrative of the life and fortunes of a worthy clothier of Henry the First’s time, telling how he rose to wealth and prosperity, and was finally murdered by an innkeeper.  There is interwoven a relation of the unhappy loves of the “faire Margaret,” daughter of the exiled Earl of Shrewsbury, and of Duke Robert, the King’s brother, which ends in the Duke losing his eyes, and the fair Margaret being immured in a convent.  The story illustrates some curious old customs, and is written in an unaffected and easy style, which makes it still very readable.  A passage describing the churching feast of the wife of one of the “Sixe worthie yeomen,” makes a natural and humorous picture of contemporary manners.

Sutton’s wife of Salisbury, which had lately bin deliuered of a sonne, against her going to church, prepared great cheare; at what time Simon’s wife of Southhampton came thither, and so did diuers others of the clothiers’ wiues, onely to make merry at this churching feast:  and whilest these dames sate at the table, Crab, Weasell and Wren waited on the board, and as the old Prouerbe speaketh, Many women, many words, so tell it out at that time; for there was such prattling that it passed:  some talkt of their husbands’ frowardnes, some shewed their maids’ sluttishnes, othersome deciphered the costlines of their garments, some told many tales of their neighbours:  and to be briefe there was none of them but would have talke for a whole day.

But when Crab, Weazell and Wren saw this, they concluded betwixt themselves, that as oft as any of the women had a good bit of meate on their trenchers, they offering a cleane one should catch that commodity, and so they did; but the women being busie in talke, marked it not, till at the last one found leisure to misse her meate * * * The women seeing their men so merry, said it was a sign there was good ale in the house.[31]