The Chronicles of Robin Hood (12 page)

Robin cast one scornful, laughing glance at him, and turned to Little John, saying: ‘Take away the horse, John; it is too fine a steed for such a sorry rider; and bring in its place the white palfrey we took last week.’

When Little John came back with the palfrey, Robin himself aided the raging and shirt-clad sheriff to mount. ‘Ah! rage away, Master Sheriff,’ said he. ‘Maybe it will keep you warm on your homeward ride! Give the palfrey to your lady wife, with all thanks for her hospitality, from Robin Hood.’ Then, turning to his tall lieutenant: ‘Take them up to the Nottingham road by the shortest way, John, and two score of the lads with you, to make sure they do not miss their way and wander back.’

‘You shall pay for this!’ shouted the sheriff. ‘I will have you hanged, drawn, and quartered! I will appeal to the king! I will—’

Little John caught his bridle and turned the palfrey’s head towards the forest-glooms; and so, still spluttering, swearing, and vowing vengeance, the sheriff was hustled off on his homeward way.

When he and his men-at-arms, together with the
outlaw escort, had all disappeared among the trees, Robin sent Much, Peterkin, and George-a-Green to reclaim the pony and cart; then, followed by the rest, he walked down the long glade, parted a mass of hazel and dogwood at the farther end, and came out into the open ride below Dunwold Scar.

Marian was standing beside the cooking fire, with the large iron stew-spoon still in her hand. ‘Robin!’ she called. ‘What has happened? We heard your horn, and the lads ran; but I could not leave the stew. Why did you sound your horn? And what was the meaning of the shouting and laughter I heard afterwards?’

Meanwhile, the potter, who had been sitting on a log beside the fire, had got up and was demanding: ‘What of my pony? What of my cart? What of my pots?’

Robin did his best to answer both of them at once, and at last, opening the sheriff’s wallet, counted out five gold nobles. ‘Will this cover the cost of your pots?’ he asked, smiling.

The potter took the money without a word, looking very hard at Robin the while. ‘Folks call you a robber,’ said he at last; ‘but
I
think you are an honest man and a generous one, and so, after I have changed clothes with you, and before I take to the road, I should like to shake your hand again.’

‘And so you shall,’ said Robin. ‘But will you not stop and eat with us before you go?’

But the potter was already pulling off Robin’s green tunic, and shook his head. ‘No, no. I must be on my homeward way.’ So Robin doffed the loose brown smock, and after they had changed clothes once more, they struck hands and parted, the best of friends.

BROWN LEAVES WERE
drifting down the autumn gale as Robin stood one morning beside the road that ran through the forest from Sheffield to Doncaster. He had been about to cross, when, in a lull of the wind, he heard the merry sound of someone whistling as he came along the road, and he waited to see who it might be. Round the bend came a young man, striding along blithely, and whistling as he went. From throat to heel he was clad in gayest scarlet, and his yellow hair whipped about his face, for he wore no cap.

For a few moments Robin watched him, with a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes; but as the young gallant
drew level with him, he stepped out from the trees, arrow ready nocked to bowstring.

‘You seem to be in a blithe good humour, my brave young popinjay!’ said he. ‘Have you any gold in your wallet, young sir? If you have, I am sure you will gladly give it to me, so that my lads and I may drink your health.’

‘If there were any gold in my wallet,’ replied the young man, not seeming to notice the drawn bow, ‘I would be very glad to give it to you to drink my health, for I am to be married to-day; but the only gold I have is a wedding ring for my bride. Yet stay a moment; here are five shillings. I have no more. Take them and welcome.’ And he held out the coins in the palm of his hand.

Robin shook his head and lowered the bow. ‘I’ll not rob a bridegroom going to his wedding. Go your way, lad, and may you be happy, and your bride also.’ He stepped back into the brown forest shadows; and after gazing in surprise for a few moments at the place where he had disappeared, the young gallant went gaily on his way, whistling as before.

Robin halted among the trees, and turned to watch the scarlet-clad figure striding away into the distance; then, crossing the road, he also went on his way, thinking no more of the matter. But before that same time next day he was to see the young man again.

The outlaw leader was sitting in the opening of his cave in Dunwold Scar, with Marian beside him, he binding a fishing-rod, she combing her hair in the windy autumn sunshine. The morning meal was over and the cooks were cleaning up after it, while some of the men made ready
for target-practice. One of the dogs lay close beside the cooking-fire gnawing at a bone.

Suddenly the hazel bushes at the far side of the glade were parted, and out into the open came Ket-the-Smith and Will Stukely, walking one on either side of a haggard and dishevelled young man who came striding across the glade to stand before Robin.

The outlaw leader did not recognize him for a moment, so different was he from the blithe young gallant of the day before. Gone was his scarlet tunic and hose, gone all his light-hearted gaiety. He was clad in a weatherworn leather jack and mail coif; on his curly yellow head was a light steel cap, and a long sword hung at his hip. He seemed a very grim young man, but somehow Robin liked him better thus than in his scarlet of yesterday.

Robin sat quietly looking up at him for a few moments, and the young man stood as quietly looking down at Robin. Ket-the-Smith was explaining: ‘Us found this lad on the Doncaster road, Master. He was asking for you.’

Robin nodded. ‘What of your wedding?’ asked he. ‘You have not the look of a new-made bridegroom!’

‘I am not a bridegroom,’ the young man said harshly. ‘When I reached the house of Sir Simon de Beauforest, who is my lady’s father, I found the gates barred against me; and to-day my Alice is to wed Sir Niger le Bigot, because he is powerful and her father fears him.’

‘Niger le Bigot,’ said Robin thoughtfully. ‘Surely he is very ancient to be a young maid’s bridegroom?’

‘And a black-hearted villain into the bargain!’ added the young man, savagely. Robin nodded. Niger le Bigot’s name and his evil reputation were well known to him. He had had one wife already, and she had killed herself
rather than suffer his cruelties any longer; grim tales of serfs put to death and of a torture-chamber in his castle clung like murky cobwebs about his name, making it feared and hated throughout all Sherwood.

Glancing aside for a moment into Marian’s indignant face, he got up, and putting his hand on the other’s mail-clad shoulder said kindly: ‘And you thought I might help you?’

The young man nodded, and Robin went on: ‘Yet you know nothing of me, save that I nearly robbed you yesterday.’

‘I did not come to seek the man I met yesterday,’ replied the other. ‘I came to seek Robin Hood, my father’s friend, not knowing that they were one and the same.’

‘Your father’s friend?’ Robin looked at him more closely.

‘Yes, I am Alan A’Dale, son of Sir Richard-at-Lea.’

‘Are you indeed?’ cried Robin. ‘Then I will do all that I can for you, Alan, for the sake of your father. But tell me one thing: why have you not gone to him for help in this?’

‘My father knows nothing of what has happened, for I have lived in my own house over Newstead way, and farmed my own land this year and more. And I did not go to him, because he has suffered enough on my account already—as you know well, for it was you who saved him from the ruin that I had brought upon him.’ Alan broke off, and glanced round at the brown-clad men who had all dispersed to their different duties and pastimes; flushing crimson to the rim of his steel cap, he began to fidget with the buckle of his sword-belt. ‘I am a poor man,’ he said at last. ‘I can give you and your men nothing in
payment; but if you will aid me to save my true love, I will be your faithful slave.’

‘Our Lady forbid,’ said Robin, ‘that I should take payment for aiding the son of my friend. But Le Bigot is a powerful man, as you say, and has powerful friends. The Normans will be hot against you after this, Bishop and Baron alike, and the Greenwood will be the best place for you. So you shall come to me, not as a slave, but as one of my band, and your Alice shall be a companion to my own Marian.’

Marian had long ceased to comb her hair, and was sitting with her comb in her lap, listening intently to all that passed between the two men. Now she spoke. ‘I shall be glad to have your lady at my side—for among all these men, I do long sometimes for another woman to talk to.’

‘Thank you for your kind words, Mistress Marian,’ said Alan, bowing his head. ‘She will have need of kindness—she is very young, not used to the ways of the Greenwood.’

Marian laughed softly, and began to comb her hair again. ‘Why, as to that, I am not yet a withered crone myself; and I too was not used to the Greenwood when I came to live in it; but I learned, and Alice will learn too.’

‘Beauforest holds Kirkby Manor, does he not?’ broke in Robin, glancing up at the sun, which was beginning to glint between the trees on the eastern border of the glade. ‘And Kirkby is five miles from here. At what time is your Alice to be wed?’

‘At noon,’ replied Alan.

‘Then there is no time to be lost. Wait for me here.’ And turning, Robin swung himself up the steep bank,
and disappeared into the dark mouth of a cave half-hidden by a great hanging curtain of wild clematis.

Alan looked uncertainly down at Marian, fidgeting from foot to foot in his eagerness to be gone. She looked up, and patted the turf beside her. ‘He’ll not be long. Sit down here, friend Alan A’Dale, and tell me about your lady.’

The young man hesitated for a moment, and then did as she bade him. Marian parted her hair in two, and began to braid it. ‘Now,’ said she, ‘is she very beautiful? Is she dark or fair?’

So, almost against his will, Alan found himself talking, telling how fair Alice was, and how gentle, and how much he loved her. And Marian listened to him, and felt sorry for the poor, gentle little maid, who—if she was to be wed to the man of her choice, instead of to a cruel and wicked old tyrant—must learn to face the hardships of life in the Greenwood.

There was a sound behind and above them; the hanging curtain of wild clematis was thrust aside, and Robin Hood came leaping down into the glade. He was no longer a brown-clad forest-ranger, but the dark-skinned minstrel he had been on that day long ago when he had set out to rescue Marian. Standing beside Alan, who had sprung to his feet, he gave a curious, shrill whistle, at sound of which every head turned in his direction. Men dropped their tasks, lounging figures sprang erect, and from all parts of the glade the outlaws came running to stand before their leader.

Robin’s glance moved over them, and he called to the small, bright-eyed man beside Little John. ‘Peterkin lad, do I make as fine a minstrel as I did the last time you and I went to steal a lady?’

The little juggler nodded, his black eyes dancing. ‘Aye, Master, you’ll do well enough. And I? Do I put on my motley again?’

‘No, keep your good forest brown,’ answered Robin.

‘It is your skill with a broadsword that I shall want this day.’ And turning to the rest, he told them quickly what was in the wind. ‘Lads,’ he ended, ‘I need five-and-twenty of you to follow me and Alan here to Kirkby. Those of you who would come, hold up your right hands.’ Instantly every right hand in the company shot up. Robin laughed. ‘Good lads!’ he said. ‘Yet five-and-twenty is all I need, so I must make my own choice.’

Man after man stepped out from the band and fell away to form a smaller company of their own as he called their names: Little John, Peterkin, Gilbert, Watkin, Hob-o’-the-Hoar-Oak, and a score more, including a tall, yellow-haired Dane called (because of the power of his fists) Right-Hitting-Brand, who had lately joined the brotherhood.

Alan stood very still, looking into the face of each man as they came forward. Their resolute looks gave him hope, but all the time his fever of impatience was rising with the sun that crept up over the tree-tops, until he could scarcely bear the quiet orderliness of the preparations going on, as men saw to their bowstrings and made sure that their brands were loose and easy in the sheaths and collected the arrows that were issued from the fletcher’s store. Yet it was only a very short while that he had to wait after all.

Will Scarlet and Much-the-Miller’s-Son were left in command of the camp, greatly to their disgust; and the chosen band set out, Robin at their head, with young
Alan A’Dale striding beside him, and the rest strung out in single file behind. They struck straight through the forest in the direction of Kirkby, moving swiftly and silently between the crowding trees. Not a dry leaf rustled, not a twig snapped, to tell of their going, only now and then a jay would scream its harsh defiance; or a buck rabbit would thump its warning to the forest before diving for safety in its own bury; or the grazing deer would raise startled heads, and then, as though reassured, return to their cropping of the grass.

It was still some time before noon when they came down the last wooded slope and glimpsed the brown ploughland of Kirkby Village, between the tree-trunks. On the woodshore Robin halted, and after taking a quick look at the lay of the land, turned to his followers who had silently closed up behind him.

‘Follow yonder willow-plantation,’ said he. ‘It will bring you within half a bowshot of the church. Wait there till you hear my bugle-horn; then come to me as swiftly as you can, for there will be work for you to do.’ He gripped Alan’s shoulder for a moment, saying kindly: ‘Never fear, we will save your lady,’ and was gone, striding across the ploughland down towards the village.

In the long street people were gathering, some standing at their doorways; some were already drifting towards the little church among the lime-trees on the far side of the green. They were in holiday clothes, the men with their best hoods carefully mended, the women in their Sunday gowns, gay with ribbons, so that the whole village seemed as bright as a flower garden; but their faces were set and angry, and they whispered together as they
watched the green track which led from the Manor House.