Page:Maid Marian - Peacock (1822).djvu/116

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Maid Marian.

cracked baron, bone-cracked, sconce-cracked, brain-cracked baron."

"What do you mean," said the baron, "bully frier, by calling me hacked and thwacked?"

"Were you not in the wars?" said the friar, "where he who escapes unhacked does more credit to his heels than his arms? I pay tribute to your valour in calling you hacked and thwacked."

"I never was thwacked in my life," said the baron; "I stood my ground manfully, and covered my body with my sword. If I had had the luck to meet with a fighting friar indeed, I might have been thwacked, and soundly too: but I hold myself a match for any two laymen: it takes nine fighting laymen to make a fighting friar."

"Whence come you now, holy father?" asked Matilda.

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