noon
`` Gramercy to your majesty , '' said the friar ; `` and my inflictions shall be flasks of canary ; and if the number be -LRB- as in grave cases I may , peradventure , make it -RRB- too great for one frail mortality , I will relieve you by vicarious penance , and pour down my own throat the redundancy of the burden . '' Robin and his followers embraced the king 's proposal . A joyful meeting soon followed with the baron and Sir Guy of Gamwell : and Richard himself honoured with his own presence a formal solemnization of the nuptials of our lovers , whom he constantly distinguished with his peculiar regard . The friar could not say , Farewell to the forest , without something of a heavy heart : and he sang as he turned his back upon its bounds , occasionally reverting his head : Ye woods , that oft at sultry noon Have o'er me spread your messy shade : Ye gushing streams , whose murmured tune Has in my ear sweet music made , While , where the dancing pebbles show Deep in the restless fountain-pool The gelid water 's upward flow , My second flask was laid to cool : Ye pleasant sights of leaf and flower : Ye pleasant sounds of bird and bee : Ye sports of deer in sylvan bower : Ye feasts beneath the greenwood tree : Ye baskings in the vernal sun : Ye slumbers in the summer dell : Ye trophies that this arm has won : And must ye hear your friar 's farewell ? But the friar 's farewell was not destined to be eternal . He was domiciled as the family confessor of the earl and countess of Huntingdon , who led a discreet and courtly life , and kept up old hospitality in all its munificence , till the death of King Richard and the usurpation of John , by placing their enemy in power , compelled them to return to their greenwood sovereignty ; which , it is probable , they would have before done from choice , if their love of sylvan liberty had not been counteracted by their desire to retain the friendship of Coeur-de-Lion . Their old and tried adherents , the friar among the foremost , flocked again round their forest-banner ; and in merry Sherwood they long lived together , the lady still retaining her former name of Maid Marian , though the appellation was then as much a misnomer as that of Little John .