Third Outlaw

Have you long sojourned there?

VALENTINE

Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

First Outlaw

What, were you banish'd thence?

VALENTINE

I was.

Second Outlaw

For what offence?

VALENTINE

For that which now torments me to rehearse:
I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;
But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage or base treachery.

First Outlaw

Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.
But were you banish'd for so small a fault?

VALENTINE

I was, and held me glad of such a doom.

Second Outlaw

Have you the tongues?

VALENTINE

My youthful travel therein made me happy,
Or else I often had been miserable.

Third Outlaw

By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!

First Outlaw

We'll have him. Sirs, a word.

SPEED

Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery.

VALENTINE

Peace, villain!