The Chronicles of Robin Hood (4 page)

‘Tar-ran-tan-tra-trum-tran,’ sang the bugle-horn, waking the echoes far and wide and sending the small creatures of the forest scurrying for shelter in wild alarm; and almost before the last echoes had died out into the evening hush, green-clad men came starting out from the undergrowth to throng the bank of the stream. So swiftly and silently did they appear, that to the startled eyes of John Naylor they seemed to have sprung up out of the ground.

Will Stukely had returned from his hunting, and now came running to his master. ‘Master Robin, we heard the summons. What has happened?’

‘Nothing save that I have had a ducking and my head is broken,’ said Robin, laughing. ‘This good lad and I have had a bout of quarterstaff play, and he tipped me into the stream.’

An angry shout rose from the outlaws. Much-the-Miller’s son rushed straight at the stranger and skilfully tripped him up, and instantly the others were upon him, holding him down by the arms and legs, and struggle as he would, great John Naylor was powerless among so many.

‘What shall we do with him, Master Robin?’ asked Will Stukely, clinging round the big man’s neck. ‘Shall us duck him?’

Robin stood with his back against an alder tree, and laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. ‘No, lads, let him go, for it was done in fair fight.’

The outlaws relaxed their hold, and John Naylor got up, cherishing a bruised elbow.

‘John,’ said the outlaw chief, turning to him, ‘I am Robin of Barnesdale, sometimes called Robin o’ the Hood, of whom you may have heard. These are my men—brave lads and true—and we live by reaving from the rich and powerful; and what we can do to right the wrongs of humble folk, that we do. Will you join us, John Naylor?’

‘With all my heart!’ cried John, and, striding over to Robin, he held out an enormous hand. ‘I will be a loyal man to you all the days of my life, and here is my hand on it.’

Robin returned his hand-grip strongly, and turned towards his outlaw band. ‘Lads, here is a new brother, and if size counts for anything he should be worth two! His master set him in the pillory, but he had no liking for the pillory, so he broke the steward’s head and came away. And indeed I have a fellow feeling for that steward!’ A shout of laughter greeted his words. ‘His name is John Naylor,’ Robin went on, as their mirth abated, ‘but folks call him John the Little.’

The outlaws fairly roared their approval. They crowded round their new comrade, and Will Stukely reached up and smote him on the shoulder, crying: ‘His name shall be changed to Little John! We will baptize him in good brown ale, and I will stand his godfather!’

‘Aye!’ agreed Much. ‘And a sweet pretty babe he do be, to be sure!’

And so, amid a merry, jostling crowd, Little John was hustled off through the trees toward the Stane Ley, where the carcass of a fat buck was roasting beside the fire—for Will Stukely’s hunting had fared better than his master’s. And here, in an uproarious ceremony, he was baptized with his new name, by having a jack of ale poured over his head, and another down his throat.

So Little John joined the brotherhood of the Greenwood, and Robin gained a loyal follower and his best friend.

SUMMER CAME, AND
the Stane Ley seemed full of the humming of brown velvet bees among the lime blossom. The blossom fell and the forest changed from green to gold, and it was autumn—the second autumn of Robin’s outlawry.

He had two-and-fifty men at his command now, for in the last few months the rule of St. Mary’s Benedictine monks had become harder even than of yore, and many a villein, swinking and sweating in the Manor Demesne while his own field strips went to rack and ruin, had bided his time until the chance came, and slipped away to join the men of the Greenwood; many an honest churl, burning under injustice, and freeman in danger of losing his
freedom, followed suit. They were grim men, hot against the cruel overlords who had stripped them of all they held dear, and already the names of Robin Hood and his men had become household words from Clumber Forest northward to the very gates of York.

But not all Robin’s band had come to him as fugitives, for there was another way in which he sometimes gained recruits. Whenever he heard of a man who was a good fighter and honest of heart, he would seek him out, be he outlaw, freeman, or villein, and challenge him to fight, with sword or quarterstaff, or to a shooting match, and whether he won or whether he lost, Robin would offer him a place among his own men. In this way he had gained the loyal comradeship of George-a-Green, that valiant pound-keeper of Wakefield, who had vanquished him after a fight lasting two hours; and of Arthur-a-Bland, and William of Goldsborough; and in this way he was to gain many more in the years to come.

That autumn the outlaw band had moved far up through Barnesdale Forest and were encamped less than twenty miles from York. Soon they would go south again, across the Nottinghamshire border into Sherwood, to their winter quarters. But winter was as yet some way off, and the woods aflame with their October glory, and the York to Doncaster road was a good one, with much traffic of merchants and monks—and therefore yielded a rich harvest of gold and cloth, food and weapons, which would stand the outlaws in good stead through the lean months of winter when abbot and merchant alike kept to their own firesides.

One fine October morning Robin threaded his way along the maze of narrow deer-paths between Pomfret
and Selby. He had no particular aim in view, for the larder was well filled and his pickets already posted among the chestnut trees beside the York road; but the frost in the air had set his blood a-dancing, as the rising sap does in the spring, and he had taken his bow and shot an arrow in the air, and, noting where it fell, had gone off in that direction to look for adventure, just as he had been wont to do when he was a boy.

The carpet of fallen leaves was frost-crisped underfoot, and the yet-unfallen leaves were golden overhead. The tangled bramble-domes were bowed down with clusters of blue-black fruit among leaves that were purple and gold and crimson; and the air smelled bitter with frost. Blithe and merry was Robin as he strode along the woodland ways, but he went silently as usual, head up, and scanning the forest ahead and on either side for sign of anything that might promise adventure.

Presently, on the verge of a clearing, he halted. Just ahead of him, where the path led out from the trees into a tawny sea of bracken, stood a man. His back was turned to the outlaw, but Robin saw that he was young, and clad very point-device in garments that were ill suited to the forest: his tunic was of fine black cloth, and his long hose and the velvet cap upon his head were as scarlet as the vivid wild-rose hips that decked the briar bush beside him; yet the six-foot bow in his hand was a serviceable-looking weapon, and four long deer-bolts were thrust through his girdle. Very still he stood, watching the group of fallow deer who were feeding on the farther side of the glade some forty yards off, and on the shadows of the forest verge Robin stood as still as he, waiting to see what would happen.

For a long moment nothing moved in the autumn forest; then he of the scarlet cap drew a deer-bolt from his girdle and nocked it to his bowstring. And Robin, watching with interest, saw that he was a skilled bowman, despite his popinjay appearance, for he laid his whole body to the bow, instead of drawing with his arm only, as is the way of the unskilled, and when he loosed the bolt he did so without plucking; nor did he strike his left forearm with the released bowstring. The deer-bolt hummed away across the clearing and struck a fat doe full in the breast. She ran a few paces and fell, while the rest of the herd fled for shelter in the forest.

Forth stepped Robin from the dun shadows of the trees and called blithely to the marksman: ‘A fine shot, friend scarlet-cap!’

Instantly the man swung round, revealing a pleasant face with bright dark eyes and an arrogant mouth. His glance swept up and down the brown-clad figure of the outlaw (for when the leaves turned from green to brown in the autumn Robin and his men followed suit, changing their Lincoln green for warm hoods and tunics of russet) and his hand flew to snatch an arrow from his girdle.

Robin laughed, and stayed him with a gesture. ‘I am no king’s forester. Look at my cap; I wear no bugle-badge in it.’

‘Who are you, then?’

‘A free ranger of the forest, with free men at my back.’

‘How if I distrust your word?’ demanded the young man fiercely. ‘How am I to know that you have not cut the silver badge from your cap in order to tran me? These men of yours—if I shoot now, can they be here before the bolt is in your heart?’

Robin shook his head. ‘Softly, lad; do not play the fool. I also have my bow, and can loose as swiftly as you; and if by any chance you should slay me, it would not be long, I promise you, before my men would be on your track, and you would have as much chance of life as though there were a wolf-pack on your trail. If you are so eager to use your bow, let us shoot together at an agreed mark in friendly fashion.’

For a moment the young man hesitated; then he shrugged his shoulders and withdrew his hand from the arrow in his girdle. ‘As you will.’

‘Then I will provide the prick and you shall make the garland,’ said Robin pleasantly. ‘Yonder red dogwood leaves should show up bravely against the peeled hazel.’

The young man went a little unwillingly to break off the dogwood spray, while Robin, going quickly aside into the forest, cut a long hazel wand. They met again on the narrow track, the one peeling the bark from his hazel-prick, the other twisting crimson dogwood leaves into a rough garland. Side by side they paced the agreed distance out into the clearing and set up the prick with the garland hanging from the top; side by side they returned to the briar bush from which they had started out.

‘Now,’ said Robin, ‘that was a fine shot of yours which brought down yon fallow doe. Do you think you can better it?’

‘I can try,’ answered the young man, and he seemed to have forgotten his distrust of his companion as he nocked the arrow to his string, and, bending the bow, took careful aim, and loosed. The arrow thrummed away to pass just outside the garland, and he shook his head ruefully as he stepped aside to give place to Robin.

The outlaw raised his bow, nocked his arrow, and loosed, scarcely seeming to take aim at all. The bolt passed within the garland, only two fingers’ breadth from the prick itself. Then it was the other’s turn again. This time he took even more care than before; but the arrow missed by a wider margin, and once more he gave place to Robin, whose own shaft this time grazed the top of the prick.

The third round remained, and the arrow which the stranger took from his girdle was the last he had. He stood turning it over in his fingers for a moment before nocking it to his bowstring. Then it hummed away over the tawny sea of bracken, to pass well within the garland. He heaved a little sigh of satisfaction as he gave place to Robin for the last time, and a moment later gave a sharp whistle of astonished admiration as the prick, fairly split by the outlaw’s last arrow, fell cleanly in two!

‘That was a shot worthy of Robin Hood himself!’ he exclaimed warmly, and turned to stare at his companion with a new attention; but Robin was unstringing his bow and seemed unconscious of his questioning look.

‘Why, you’re no mean archer yourself,’ Robin said at last. ‘We are both of us marksmen, you and I, and surely we should be friends also. Will you not tell me your name?’

The stranger was still watching his face very closely as he replied: ‘My name is Gamwell, and I was born and bred close to York.’

‘And what do you do here in Barnesdale Forest, Gamwell? And why do you shoot the king’s deer? For by the look of you I judge that you are no poor man’s son.’

‘I am no poor man’s son,’ answered Gamwell; ‘for my father owns broad acres between York and Fountains Dale. But I slew my father’s steward. I questioned the justice of his dealings with certain of the villeins, and we came to blows. I did not mean to kill him, but be that as it may, he is dead, and I have come to the Greenwood as my cousin Robert of Locksley came before me—and I shoot the king’s deer because I am hungry.’

Robin had stood very still while the other was speaking, watching him quietly yet eagerly. ‘Are you cousin to Robert of Locksley, then?’

‘My mother was his mother’s sister.’

For a moment Robin did not answer, then said he: ‘Robert of Locksley died on the day he was proclaimed wolfshead; but your cousin, Robin of Barnesdale, bids you very welcome to the Greenwood!’

‘I guessed it!’ cried young Gamwell. ‘I guessed it when your arrow split the wand,’ and he thrust out his hand, which Robin took in a hard grip. For an instant the cousins looked at each other joyously above their clasped hands; and then said Robin: ‘This morning I shot an arrow in the air and followed it to seek adventure—and behold, I have found my cousin!’

‘And your cousin is very glad that you have found him,’ laughed Gamwell.

Robin gave his hand a final tightening grip that all but crushed his fingers to a pulp, and released him, saying: ‘Now let us find your shafts and mine, for well-balanced arrows have their worth in the wilderness.’

They moved off through the bracken, seeking the buried shafts; the last one Robin drew from the breast of the fallen doe. ‘I will send two of my lads with a
game-stretcher for the carcass,’ he said a moment later as he rejoined his cousin; and the two of them strode off together in the direction of the outlaws’ camp.

They were still some distance from it when they beheld Little John seated on a fallen tree trunk with his bow across his knees—always when the little band was away from the security of the Stane Ley or the caves of Dunwold Scar a constant watch was kept on the approaches to the camp, and to-day it was Little John’s turn. He feigned to be much overcome by the brilliance of the stranger’s garments, shielding his eyes from their glory as though quite dazzled.

Gamwell flushed almost as scarlet as his stockings, under this pleasantry, but stood his ground manfully, until Robin cried out, laughing: ‘John, John! Cease plaguing the lad! He is cousin to me, and the only one I have, save for my cousin Ursula, who has been a nun in Kirklees Nunnery these five years and more. Make him welcome, John, for he is a new comrade of yours.’