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Maid Marian.

of Nottingham? You are a set of vagabond rascals in disguise: and I hear, by the bye, there is a gang of thieves that has just set up business in Sherwood forest: a pretty pretence, indeed, to get into my castle with force and arms, and make a famine in my buttery, and a drought in my cellar, and a void in my strong box, and a vacuum in my silver scullery."

"Lord Fitzwater," cried one, "take heed how you resist lawful authority: we will prove ourselves———"

"You will prove yourselves arrant knaves, I doubt not," answered the baron; "but, villains, you shall be more grievously bruised by me than ever was the sheriff by my daughter, (a pretty tale truly!) if you do not forthwith avoid my territory."

By this time the baron's men had flocked to the battlements, with long-bows and cross-

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