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!