Page:Maid Marian - Peacock (1822).djvu/126

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
116
Maid Marian.

young Gamwell, "and now, holy friar, shrive my sinful soul."

The friar approached.

"Let me see this friar," said the sheriff: "if he be the friar of the bridge, I had as lief have the devil in Nottingham; but he shall find me too much for him here."

"The friar of the bridge," said Little John, "as you very well know, sheriff, was father Michael of Rubygill Abbey, and you may easily see that this is not the man."

"I see it," said the sheriff; "and God be thanked for his absence."

Young Gamwell stood at the foot of the ladder. The friar approached him, opened his book, groaned, turned up the whites of his eyes, tossed up his arms in the air, and said, "Dominus vobiscum." He then crossed both his hands on his breast under the folds of his holy robes, and stood a few mo-