by Roger Green
‘Well, at least come and dine with us,’ said Robin. ‘I owe you a good meal in exchange for the good drink I had at your expense. But I hope that you will remain with us: for I hear that you are a notable archer, and I bear on my sides the proof that you are a notable wielder of the staff!’
Robin then blew his horn, and before long Little John and several others appeared among the trees.
‘By the Mass!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘Is that not John Little whom I see coming over yonder?’
‘That was his name,’ answered Robin, ‘before he suffered a forest change and became my dearest friend and most faithful follower as Little John.’
‘Then I am with you indeed,’ cried Arthur. ‘John is my own cousin, our mothers being sisters, and I have ever loved him like a brother. And I have been seeking him these several years.’
‘What is the matter, good master?’ called Little John as he drew near and saw the blood on Robin’s face.
‘This fine tanner has been tanning my hide for me!’ answered Robin with a grin.
‘He is to be commended,’ said Little John gravely, ‘for few can do that. But if he is so stout a fellow, let me have a bout with him and see if he can tan my hide also!’
‘Hold your hand, good John,’ said Robin. ‘Here has been fighting enough. This our new companion is called Arthur-a-Bland… I believe that you know him!’
Then Arthur and Little John flung their staffs away and clasped one another, almost weeping with joy. And when Arthur had sworn to be loyal and true in all his dealings with Robin Hood and the rest of the Sherwood outlaws, Robin took an arm of each and led them away towards the secret glade to eat, drink, and make merry over their new alliance. And as they went through the tuneful woods they sang gaily:
Oh ever hereafter as long as we live
We three will be as one:
The wood it shall ring and the minstrel shall sing
Of Robin Hood, Arthur and John!
14
The Wedding of Allin-a-Dale
Who gives me this maid? said Little John.
Quoth Robin Hood, That do I;
And he that takes her from Allin-a-Dale,
Full dearly he shall her buy.
BALLAD: Robin Hood and Allin-a-Dale
Although Robin Hood and his men lived mainly in the caves and huts of the secret glade in the wildest depths of Sherwood Forest, they had many other dwelling places as well. And these were not merely in the other forests which covered so much of the north of England at that time.
There were one or two knights such as Sir Richard of Legh, ardent followers of King Richard and enemies of Prince John, who were ever ready to entertain or shelter Robin or any of his followers. There was also many and many another home of a poorer sort where any of the band were sure of welcome and protection – and certain that no treachery would find them: for though a price was set on every one of their heads, even the poorest serf would have died rather than betray them.
Many of these secret friends had been saved from death or want by Robin and his men: one, the minstrel Allin-a-Dale, owed Robin a debt of another kind.
Robin saw him first one spring day as he stood in the pale green shade of a chestnut tree waiting to shoot one of the dappled deer.
There came a sound of a merry singing, and a brave young man came tripping along a forest path, as fine a sight as could be seen. He was clothed in scarlet red – scarlet both fine and gay, and as he strode along, springing a little with each step, he sang as sweetly as a bird:
Lent is come with love to town
With blossom and with birds aroun’
That all bliss bringeth.
Daisies grow in every dale
Sweet notes of the nightingale
And each bird singeth.
And ever and anon he paused to strike a trilling melody from the little harp which hung from his shoulder.
Next day Robin saw him again – but different quite from what he had been. Now he came drooping through the woods, his feet dragging, his head bent. Gone was the fine array of scarlet red, and instead of the merry song he twanged a doleful dirge upon his harp and sang of lost love and hope cast away.
At a sign from Robin, Little John and Much stepped out into the open and barred the young man’s way: but he drew his sword quickly and stood in a posture of defence.
‘Stand off! Stand off!’ he cried. ‘What is your will with me?’
‘You must come before our master at once,’ said Much. ‘He awaits you in the wood yonder.’
‘And who is your master?’ asked Allin-a-Dale.
‘Robin Hood.’
‘Why then I’ll come. He is a good man, and means no harm to a poor minstrel.’
When he was brought to him Robin asked courteously:
‘Fair sir, have you any money to spare for my merry men and me?’
‘I have no money at all,’ was the answer, ‘except for five shillings, and a ring. These I have hoarded seven long years to have at my wedding. Yesterday I should have married the fairest maid in all the world – but she was taken away from me, and they are forcing her to marry a rich old knight: therefore my heart is broken.’
‘What is your name?’ asked Robin.
‘Allin-a-Dale,’ was the answer. ‘A poor minstrel, though I can sing and play – and shoot too if needs be, and wield a sword as well as any man.’
‘And what will you give me,’ asked Robin, ‘if I deliver your true love from the old knight and return her safely to you?’
‘Alas,’ said Allin, ‘I have no money. But I will swear upon the Bible to be your true and faithful servant.’
‘How many miles is it to where your true love is?’ asked Robin. ‘See that you tell me exactly.’
‘By my faith,’ said Allin eagerly, ‘it is not more than five miles.’
Then after speaking a word or two with Little John, Robin borrowed Allin’s harp, wrapped his cloak about him, and set out as fast as he could walk until he came to the church where the wedding was to be.
When he got there he found everyone waiting for the bride and bridegroom, and the Bishop of Peterborough who was to perform the ceremony asked him who he was and why he came pushing his way into the church.
‘I am the best harper in the north country,’ answered Robin boldly. ‘And I am sure that no wedding is complete without music.’
‘If that is so, you are right welcome,’ said the Bishop. ‘Come, play to us until bride and groom arrive.’
So Robin played a number of simple, merry country tunes, and everyone was contented – until the bride arrived.
She was both young and lovely, but as pale as death and her eyes red with weeping.
After her came the old knight who was to be her husband – an evil-looking old man who shuffled along, his chin wagging with palsy, his eyes leering at the pretty young girl who was being sold to him – for the marriage was nothing else.
Now Robin ought to have ceased from his harping when the bridegroom came, but instead of that, he played louder and louder.
‘Silence now, silence, master harper!’ cried the Bishop angrily.
‘Not so,’ answered Robin calmly. ‘For I see no bridegroom yet for this lovely lass who shines like glittering gold with her youth and beauty… This old man is, I suppose, her grandfather, come to give her in marriage to the man of her choice?’
‘Impudent fellow!’ spluttered the Bishop. ‘This is my brother, and he is to marry the girl!’
‘Is he your own choice?’ asked Robin turning to the bride, and sadly she murmured, ‘No.’
‘It is not for her to choose!’ shouted the Bishop. ‘Her parents are dead, and I, as her legal guardian, say that she shall marry my brother. She had some silly, girlish fancy for a penniless minstrel called Allin-a-Dale; but I sent him to the right-about yesterday, and he’ll not return. A knight’s daughter with house and lands in her own right is not for such as he!’
‘Ah-ha!’ cried Robin. ‘So that’s it! There’s mone
y behind it – and a Judas masquerading as a Bishop!’
With that he set his horn to his lips and blew a long shrill call; and the echoes had not died away before a band of more than two dozen archers came pouring into the church. And at their head was Allin-a-Dale, and it was he who reached Robin first and placed a bow in his hands.
‘And now,’ said Robin sternly, ‘let the marriage proceed – but with the lawful bridegroom. Lawful, according to the law of God!’
‘Here am I,’ said Allin-a-Dale.
‘Good,’ replied Robin. ‘You come a bachelor, but you shall leave this church a married man!’
‘It shall not be!’ stormed the Bishop. ‘It can be no lawful marriage: the banns must be called three times – that is the law of England.’
‘Little John,’ commanded Robin, ‘find you a gown and a surplice, go up into the pulpit, and call the banns!’
Little John helped himself to a gown from a minor priest, a surplice from the Bishop himself, and ascended the steps with solemn mien, while Robin murmured:
‘By my faith, this cloth makes a different man of him!’
But Little John was not turned suddenly into a priest, and he made everyone in the church laugh by calling the banns seven times ‘lest,’ as he explained, ‘three times should not be enough!’
Neither the Bishop nor the old knight dared forbid the banns, for Robin set an arrow in his bowstring and glanced at them threateningly.
‘Who giveth this maid to be married?’ asked Little John.
‘That do I!’ cried Robin. ‘And he who tries to take her from Allin-a-Dale must beware of Robin Hood! And any one who tries to defraud her of land or money needs to beware of me also!’
After this, Little John came down from the pulpit and returned his robe to the Bishop.
‘Now then, my lord Bishop,’ said Robin sternly, ‘we wait for you to perform the ceremony according to the full rites of Holy Church.’
‘I will not do it!’ growled the Bishop.
‘No?’ said Robin slowly. ‘Then we will fetch our own priest, Friar Tuck, from the forest… But you, my lord Bishop, may expect a visit from several hundred of my men – who will collect a clerk’s fee from you to the extent of all you possess.’
After that the Bishop married Allin-a-Dale to the bride, who looked like a queen, her eyes shining with happiness.
And in the course of time she and Allin-a-Dale were able to secure her father’s house and lands on the borders of Sherwood Forest, and live there untroubled in their peace and happiness.
Moreover so long as he lived Robin Hood was the most welcome guest who ever came there, and many were the songs and ballads that Allin made about the doings of him and his merry men.
15
Robin Hood and the Bishop
Come, gentlemen all, and listen awhile,
And a story I’ll to you unfold;
I’ll tell you how Robin Hood served the bishop
When he robbed him of his gold.
BALLAD: Robin Hood and the Bishop
The Bishop of Peterborough was not a man who would easily forgive Robin Hood for outwitting him in the affair of Allin-a-Dale, and he sought for revenge most eagerly.
He went first to the Sheriff of Nottingham.
‘Master Sheriff,’ he said, ‘I demand a company of men at arms and archers to punish this villain Robin Hood!’
‘My Lord Bishop,’ answered the Sheriff, ‘I would willingly do anything I might to scatter these bold outlaws and hang Robin Hood. I myself have many reasons for wishing to be revenged on him. But I cannot gather a large enough company: all men hereabouts seem to be in league with him.’
‘Then I will visit the knights and the barons of this shire,’ stormed the Bishop. ‘They will not be in league with this traitor!’
‘You will get little help from them,’ answered the Sheriff sadly. ‘The lesser knights will scarcely dare to attack him, lest he should burn down their steads and drive away their flocks and herds.’
‘But the barons?’ persisted the Bishop. ‘A few wild ruffians in the forest will scarcely burn down a well-fortified castle!’
‘Robin Hood’s band is said to exceed three hundred men in number,’ answered the Sheriff. ‘As for the barons, assuredly they will assist you – and call out all their liegemen and tenants and serfs: but, however big an army they collect, you will never find Robin Hood by their aid. Oh, you’ll never be able to accuse a single man of them of treachery – but Robin Hood will have had due warning, and he and his whole gang will be settled quietly in Barnsdale or Plompton or Delamere or Pendle before ever your expedition sets out.’
‘Then what can I do?’ fumed the Bishop.
‘Take him by surprise,’ answered the Sheriff. ‘Go with a small company of my men. Sir Guy of Gisborne would help you, only he is away fighting for Prince John, so I will lend you my seneschal Worman. He was Robin Hood’s steward, and hates his former master. Take him and twenty or thirty men. Doubtless the wily Worman will hatch a scheme for you…’
Robin wandered in the forest to shoot a deer, when he met with a palmer – a silly old man dressed in ragged clothes and hung about with bags like a beggar.
‘Ah, sir!’ cried the palmer in a high, cracked voice; ‘you look like a forest man: can you tell me where I may find Robin Hood? Oh, he’s a kind man, a noble man, is bold Robin!’
‘How now, you silly fellow,’ said Robin, ‘what’s the news? What is it that you want to tell Robin Hood so badly?’
‘A fearful thing! Such a to-do!’ cackled the palmer. ‘Master Sheriff’s seneschal, Master Worman, is dealing out the Forest Laws with four men to help him. Oh, such a shame, such a crying shame! Three proper young men – and two will hang, and the third grope his way blind till God releases him from life.’
‘Where?’ asked Robin briskly.
‘Not a furlong hence,’ answered the palmer. You know the cottage by the brook? Well over the slope beyond… One of the lads is the old woman’s son.’
‘How near to the hanging are they?’ asked Robin.
‘Oh, they wait awhile, for the hangman has not come.’
‘Good,’ said Robin. ‘Now make haste, old man, and lend me your gown. Here are forty shillings in payment for it.’
‘Ah, my gown is in rags,’ piped the old palmer. ‘You do but jest!… Oh, sir, you will not rob an old man?’
‘Content,’ exclaimed Robin curtly. ‘Here is the money. Strip off that gown quickly. And know that I myself am Robin Hood.’
‘Oh then indeed, noble sir, I know that you will deal justly with me,’ cried the palmer, and he stripped off his gown with great alacrity.
Robin put it on – a strange garment, patched with black, blue, and red, on which hung the various bags like pockets turned inside out, in which the palmer put the food which was given to him. Then he put on the palmer’s dirty, frayed old hat, and set off through the forest as fast as he could go.
Past the old woman’s cottage he went, over the stream by the stepping stones, and over the brow of the slope beyond. There, sure enough, were several Forest guards or Verderers standing round a newly lighted fire. By them stood Worman holding the reins of his horse, and from a tree nearby a man was hanging, his limbs yet jerking though he was already dead.
‘Too easy a death,’ Worman was saying, with a harsh laugh. ‘The jerk as I led the horse away from under him broke his neck and he died in a moment. Now if we had but a proper hangman to pull the other rogue up gently and throttle the life out of him slowly as he struggles at the rope’s end…’
‘God save you, master forester!’ cackled Robin, hobbling up at this moment, dressed as the old palmer. ‘Did I hear your highness say that you were in need of a hangman this day?’
‘You did, old man,’ said Worman shortly.
‘What will you give me as a hangman’s fee if I do the job for you?’
‘A new suit of clothes – which you sorely need,’ said Worman. ‘And a piece of gold if you will blind
this other miserable law-breaker for us.’
‘Give me but iron and rope!’ cried Robin, ‘and I’ll show you how clever I am at the job!’
‘Give them to him,’ ordered Worman.
As soon as Robin had the halter and the blinding-iron in his hand, he leapt swiftly onto a fallen stump nearby, and climbed into a spreading oak-tree.
‘By my head, you’re a nimble old man!’ remarked Worman, with a grin. ‘Make haste and fasten the rope, for I know of a traitor who has lived too long!’
‘I was never a hangman in my life,’ said Robin, still in the palmer’s voice, ‘nor do I intend to be now. Cursed be all who consent to be of such a trade!’
‘How now, what mean you?’ asked Worman anxiously.
‘Ha-ha!’ cried Robin, and he sang:
I’ve a bag for meal and a bag for malt,
And a bag for barley and corn;
A bag for bread, and a bag for beef –
And a bag for my little small horn!
So saying, he pulled out his horn, and blew a piercingly shrill note on it.
‘Wind away!’ laughed Worman. ‘You silly old palmer, I know you well. Blow till your eyes drop out – it will but deprive me of the pleasure of burning them!’
Even as he said this, Robin was aware of armed men wearing the Sheriff’s livery who were closing in round the tree, and of the Bishop of Peterborough with his followers riding through the forest towards where he was.
‘A trap!’ thought Robin, and in a moment he had dropped out of the tree and was running his hardest down the hill while Worman shouted:
‘After him, men! It is Robin Hood! This time he cannot escape!’
Robin bounded across the stepping stones and flung himself against the cottage door, which flew open at a touch.
‘God-a-mercy!’ screamed the old woman. ‘Who ever are you!’
‘Peace, good mother!’ gasped Robin. ‘You know me well – I am Robin Hood. And yonder is the Bishop of Peterborough and the Sheriff’s men: I cannot get away, and if they take me, I’ll hang before your door!’