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THE GENTLE ROBBER
butcher and cloth-spinner, and peasant folk from the country round; and on a dais, built high for better seeing, were knights and ladies and nobles of the court, with the King himself, and the Gentle Robber at his side, trimly clad in sober gray and gently smiling.
It was a soft day of golden sun, and the sky was blue above the place, and the least wind sighed softly as if for pity as it breathed about the iron stake and played with the yellow locks of the young Squire's hair and moved the red folds of the shameful garment that they had placed upon him. Lifting his face, he leaned his cheek against the wind, for it seemed to him a breeze that had played among the beech leaves in the ancient forest by his father's
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