by Roger Green
‘That shall never be!’ cried the old woman. ‘I mind me of how you saved my boy once from losing his arrow fingers – and the many a time you have brought me food when I was starving… But I knew you not in that strange guise…’
‘I’ve no time to tell you of it,’ began Robin.
‘Quick,’ interrupted the old woman. ‘Change clothes with me – your Lincoln green as well as that gown. By God’s grace he’ll not want to hang you here, but to take you off to Nottingham…’
Swiftly the exchange was made, and when the first soldier reached the door and burst it open, Robin was busily cooking over the fire – a perfect old woman in the dim light of the cottage.
‘Where is that traitor Robin Hood?’ cried the leader of the men, who was none other than Worman.
‘Robin Hood?’ screeched the old woman who was really Robin. ‘What do I know of him?’
‘Search the place,’ commanded Worman briefly, and it did not take many minutes to find the old woman dressed as Robin Hood, and drag her out into the open.
‘Ah-ha, you false traitor!’ cried Worman exultantly. ‘We have you fast at length. I’ve long lived in fear of you, and today that fear is ended. But you shall have an hour or two in which to fear me – while I am heating the irons to burn out your eyes, which I shall do with my own hand. But that of course will come after I have cut off those fingers, with which you pull a bowstring and break the Forest Laws… And maybe even a bowstring for the halter which hangs you would be but justice…’
‘Is that the proud traitor Robin Hood?’ asked the Bishop, riding up at that moment.
‘Here he is, safe enough, my lord,’ answered Worman. ‘Our little trap worked splendidly as you see. Ah, I knew how to snare this rascal.’
‘A rich reward shall be yours, Master Worman,’ said the Bishop. ‘Set the villain on a horse, tie him with his face towards the tail, and let us hasten away to Nottingham.’
When this was done they rode gently up the slope again, the Bishop laughing and joking in his delight at capturing Robin Hood, until they came to the tree where Worman’s first victim was hanging.
‘Faugh!’ said the Bishop. ‘This tree bears strange fruit! But tell me, master seneschal, was this all a blind to catch Robin Hood?’
‘Not so,’ answered Worman. ‘That carrion had killed three of King John’s deer –’
‘King John?’ queried the Bishop, but with a sly smile.
‘King John!’ declared Worman. ‘For surely Richard is dead… And that reminds me, we have two other criminals, one to hang and one to lose his eyes. We’d better hang them both quickly, as it is not good to delay here with so dangerous a prisoner as Robin Hood… You, master verderer, send one of your men up the tree to fix a couple of ropes. Tie the villains’ hands and set them on my horse’s saddle in turn… If I whistle my horse will come to me – and there we have a hangman where no hangman is!’
So the ropes were fixed, and the first man made to stand on Worman’s horse with the noose round his neck and his hands bound.
‘And now,’ said Worman, deliberately enjoying his victim’s fear, ‘I am about to whistle for my horse. He will obey me… sooner or later.’
But as he ended there came a whistle of another kind, and an arrow sped over their heads and severed the rope clean through. Then the young man who had so narrowly been saved from hanging dropped astride the horse, kicked it fiercely with his heels, and galloped away, his hands still bound behind him.
‘Who shot yonder arrow?’ began the Bishop, and then he turned pale and his jaw fell. For out of the forest on every side came archers in Lincoln green, running company by company, the arrows ready on their bows.
‘Marry!’ cried the old woman with a shrill scream of laughter, ‘I think it must be a man they call Robin Hood! Yes, there he comes at the head of his merry men.’
‘Robin Hood!’ gasped the Bishop, while Worman turned a sickly green and trembled so that he nearly fell. ‘Then in the devil’s name, who and what are you?’
‘Why, you wicked Bishop, I am but a poor old woman – as plain you may see if you strip off these garments, which Robin Hood gave me of his charity!’
‘Then woe is me,’ said the Bishop, ‘that ever I saw this day!’
But Worman turned to his men. ‘Fire a volley of arrows!’ he shouted. ‘Then draw your swords and fight like men! Fight, curse you!’
But the Sheriff’s men flung down their bows and fled for dear life, the ranks of the outlaws opening to let them pass, and closing again when they were gone.
Then Robin strode up to where Worman and the Bishop sat their horses, pale and trembling, with only two of the Bishop’s followers who, as priests, hoped that they did not need to fly for their lives.
‘Come,’ said the Bishop hastily. ‘Let us away. He will not dare to risk the curse of Holy Church!’
‘Hold, Bishop!’ cried Robin sternly. ‘I mean you no harm, and you must dine with me before you go… But I have justice to perform first. John, Scarlet, Arthur, seize Worman and bind his hands.’
Then Worman flung himself on the ground, weeping and praying for mercy.
‘Spare me, noble Huntingdon!’ he howled. ‘I served you long and faithfully –’
‘Until it served your turn better to betray me,’ interrupted Robin coldly. ‘Yes, deny it not… That I forgave you, and sought for no vengeance. But you yourself have shown no mercy, though mercy has been shown to you, and you swore to me once as Scarlet did also, to do all in your power to save whom you could from the cruel Forest Laws which bring God’s curse upon this poor land… No, no words… Here, one of you, fling a rope over that branch… Good, now the noose over his head… Friar Tuck, the last rites of the Church – then six of you run away with the end of the rope and make it fast…’
When Worman had met the fate he so richly deserved Robin Hood turned to the Bishop.
‘Now come you to dinner, my lord,’ he said courteously.
‘I would rather die,’ shouted the Bishop.
‘Why then,’ said Robin, ‘you may ride away – after you have paid toll.’
So saying he spread his cloak on the ground, and a search of the Bishop’s pockets and saddle bags soon supplied it with a shining pile of gold and silver.
Meanwhile the Bishop, cursing him in English and Latin, was tied to a tree.
‘Let him go now,’ commanded Robin, pouring the money into several bags.
‘Not yet,’ said Little John. ‘It is rarely that we have so high a dignitary of the Church as a guest. Let him sing Mass for us before he goes.’
‘I would rather die, repeated the Bishop sulkily.
‘Then you may do so,’ said Robin, ‘for there you stay, tied to that tree, until you fulfil your duty as a priest.’
Then the Bishop sang Mass, assisted by his two trembling followers, while all the outlaws doffed their hoods and knelt reverently round about him.
‘I thank you, my lord Bishop,’ said Robin gravely when the service was ended. ‘Now go in peace.’
So he cut the Bishop’s bonds, set him on his horse, and guided him carefully back to the main road which led to Nottingham.
16
George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield
The first whereof that I intend to show
Is merry Wakefield, and her pinner too,
Which fame hath blazed with all that did belong
Unto that town in many gladsome song,
The pinner’s valour, and how firm he stood
In th’ town’s defence ’gainst th’ rebel Robin Hood.
RICHARD BRATHWAYTE: A Strappado for the Divell (1615)
The years went by quickly enough while Robin Hood dwelt in Sherwood with his merry band of outlaws. Outside in the greater world Prince John plotted and schemed to gain power, and King Richard after his unsuccessful Crusade was captured by the Archduke of Austria and languished long in prison. Rumours of Richard’s fate crept home to England, which John strove to turn to his own go
od; but Blondel, Richard’s faithful minstrel friend, sought him all over Europe, found him in his castle prison, and brought back the news.
Then, though John strove to discredit it, the truth was told throughout England, and rich and poor alike brought what money they could towards the great ransom which the Archduke demanded for their King.
Robin Hood was very active in the collecting of this ransom, and no bishop or abbot, nor any baron, knight, or even squire who was known to be a follower of Prince John, could pass through Sherwood Forest without being stopped for tribute.
But while the ransom was collecting, John strove once more to seize the crown for himself, and there was great unrest particularly in the North of England where manly barons favoured him, but Ranulph Earl of Chester stood staunchly for King Richard and strove to catch and kill as traitors any who stood for Prince John.
A humbler champion of King Richard’s, but one who has won to even greater fame was a certain George-a-Greene who was the Pinner of Wakefield in Yorkshire. His profession was to catch any sheep or cattle found straying on the roads or in the fields of corn or hay and pound them – that is shut them up until claimed (with an appropriate fine) in the village pound or pinfold which was like a small pen or run with high stone walls and a strong gate.
George-a-Greene, however, pounded traitors as well as cattle, defied even the commanders who came to attack the little town of Wakefield with their troops of men at arms and archers, and won victory after victory with the aid of the men of Wakefield, until on a sudden his name was more talked of throughout the country than even that of Robin Hood.
George was a man of great strength and he was skilled with all weapons. Naturally all the maidens of Wakefield sought his love, and the most beautiful of them all, Bettris, the daughter of a wealthy Justice called Grimes, won his heart. For a long time, however, Grimes would not allow them to marry: he himself was rather inclined towards Prince John’s side, and a great lord among the rebels sought Bettris’s hand in marriage.
George won Grimes’s consent at length, but only after many setbacks and adventures which were noised abroad and even sung of in ballads to such an extent that Bettris was soon as famous throughout the land as George-a-Greene himself.
Rumours of all this reached Robin and his men in Sherwood, but most was told them by a wandering minstrel who was sheltered in the secret dell during a fortnight of heavy rain. He strove to pay for his entertainment by telling stories and singing ballads, and it chanced that most of these were concerned with the bravery and strength of George-a-Greene, and the unparalleled beauty of the lovely Bettris.
When the minstrel had gone, Robin noticed that Marian was strangely silent and depressed, and her melancholy and shortness of temper grew so extreme that he was almost inclined to fear lest he had cause for jealousy.
‘My lovely Marian,’ said he one April day as they sat near to one another by the great trysting tree in the secret glade. ‘Why are you not cheerful as you used to be? What ails you, my sweetheart, and makes you so sad? Is it this long, long wait for Richard to come home to his own and give you to me in marriage, according to our oath?’
Marian smiled, and leant her head against Robin’s arm.
‘No, no!’ she said softly. ‘Though indeed I long more and more for that happy day,’ and she sighed a little.
‘What is it, then, sweetheart?’
‘You must not laugh at me, Robin,’ she said, looking half-ashamed as she spoke. ‘I think these long days of wet spring after snowy winter when there is little I can do – I think they are largely to blame: surely otherwise I would not worry about so trifling a care.’
She paused, and Robin said tenderly:
‘Dear heart, you know well that no care of yours can seem a trifle to me. Tell on, I pray you.’
‘Well,’ answered Marian hesitatingly, ‘one hears more and more these days of the deeds and the valour of this George-a-Greene, and of the beauty of his love the fair Bettris who is said to exceed all women in her loveliness. Until lately, your name, my Robin, was on everyone’s lips and in all the songs of the minstrels and pedlars, and they told of your deeds of prowess, your skill with bow or with quarter-staff, and – and of Maid Marian the Queen of Sherwood.’
‘And so they shall again!’ declared Robin. ‘This fellow is an upstart and rides to fame on a bubble reputation which will burst sooner or later – albeit he is a good man and a loyal, from all I hear… As for this Bettris of his, I’ll wager my head that could you but be seen once in her company, no one would look at her again!’
‘Then can we not go to Wakefield,’ hesitated Marian. ‘I cannot bear to think that men say George-a-Greene could beat Robin Hood with the quarter-staff.’
‘Content, content!’ laughed Robin Hood. ‘We will away to Wakefield forthwith! The Spring is upon us, and I feel ready for any mad adventure. Like you I also have been cooped up in our caves far too long… Yes, we will dress you as a forester – the very garb in which you deceived me when you came to seek me here. And we will take with us but Scarlet and John. Let us tell them of our venture, and bid them make sure that their bowstrings are strong, their arrows keen – and their staffs of the toughest oak. I’ll warrant heads will be broken when we meet with George-a-Greene!’
Not many evenings later, his cares permitting, George-a-Greene walked forth into the country outside Wakefield with Bettris on his arm, to view the fields where the lately sown corn was already showing tender green shoots above the brown earth.
‘Tell me, sweet love,’ George was saying, ‘are you indeed content to wed with so simple a man as I, when knights and gentlemen seek your hand in marriage?’
‘Oh, George, how can you so doubt my love –’ began Bettris, and then stopped suddenly, for George-a-Greene was grasping his staff flushed with anger, and gazing across the nearest field.
‘Look!’ he exclaimed. ‘There are four men breaking through the hedge. Yes, they are coming straight towards us across the corn. Oh, this is not to be borne!’ Then raising his voice, he roared out:
‘Get back, you foolish travellers! You are wrong – you must not come that way!’
‘Now by my soul,’ answered the foremost, who was dressed like all of them in Lincoln green and carried a staff in his hand. ‘By my soul, proud sir, we be four brave foresters, and you but one puny yeoman – who are you to tell us which way to go?’
‘Get back quickly,’ shouted George, ‘or I will make you skip over hedge and ditch, I’ll warrant you. What, is not the highway good enough for you that you must make a path over the new corn?’
‘Are you mad?’ cried Robin, who was of course the leader of the four. ‘Dare you encounter four such men as we? We are no babes, man, just look at our limbs!’
‘Sirrah,’ answered George, ‘the biggest limbs have not always the stoutest hearts. Were you as strong as Robin Hood of Sherwood and all his outlaws, still you have no right to walk across the corn, and I, George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, will drive you off like any other cattle. But if you are brave men and not cowards, come at me one at a time – and I’ll trounce you all, and only wish there were twenty such insolent fellows to feel the weight of my staff.’
‘Were you as high in deeds,’ remarked Scarlet stepping on to the road taking a position of defence, ‘as you are in words, you might well qualify as King’s Champion. But empty vessels make the loudest sounds, and cowards prattle more than really brave men.’
‘Sirrah, dare you to defy me?’ shouted George.
‘Yes, sirrah, that I dare!’ answered Scarlet.
Then they came together striking mighty blows. But the end of it was that George knocked Scarlet a crack on the head and laid him out on the ground.
‘Save your blows for a younger man,’ exclaimed Little John, and a moment later they too were exchanging blows that rang out like distant thunder across the peaceful evening fields.
But the end of that round was also that Little John felt the pinner’s staff on his
head more heavily than his senses would stand, and he too joined Scarlet on the ground.
‘Come on!’ cried Robin, taking John’s place. ‘Spare me not, and I’ll not spare you!’
‘Make no doubt of that!’ laughed George-a-Greene, ‘for I’ll be as liberal to you as I was to your friends.’
So they too set to work with their great oaken staffs, and they were so evenly matched that though they fought for an hour, neither got in a decisive blow at the other.
At length they drew apart to rest, and Robin exclaimed, panting for breath:
‘Stay, stay, good George! Let us not batter away longer at each other. By my troth, I swear that you are the stoutest champion I ever yet laid hands upon.’
‘Softly, softly, good sir,’ gasped George. ‘By your leave, you lie! You never laid hands on me yet!’
‘Well, I admit it,’ laughed Robin. ‘I have met my match. But come, good George, will you not forsake Wakefield, and go with me? I’ll promise you both gain and good fighting if you will but wear my livery of Lincoln green.’
‘In God’s name, who are you?’ asked George, mopping his forehead.
‘Why,’ answered Robin, ‘I am that Robin Hood of whom you spoke – and you have already laid out my two good friends Will Scarlet and Little John.’
‘Robin Hood!’ cried George. ‘Right glad am I to see you! Next to our lord King Richard, you are the man I honour most and have most often longed to meet. Right willingly will I be your man. My time is out as Pinner here in Wakefield and though I will not desert my home, I may well spend some of my days in Sherwood. And I doubt not that you will find a welcome also for my dear love Bettris so soon to be my wife? And if not, the far-famed Maid Marian surely will!’
‘Let her answer for herself,’ smiled Robin beckoning to the last member of his party. ‘I present Maid Marian to you!’
Both George and Bettris uttered exclamations of surprise, so perfect was Marian’s disguise. But when she flung back her hood and let the loveliness of her hair come tumbling all about her face, no one could doubt that she was far the loveliest lady in all the North Country, and Bettris, though comely and winsome, could never compare with her.