On these visits he often saw his aunt, Dame Ursula the abbess. She was a dark lean woman with crafty eyes, but she always spoke fair to him. She often asked him when he was going to buy a pardon and to leave his homeless life, so as to endow some religious house with his wealth for the purpose of getting salvation for his soul.
"Little wealth have I," Robin would reply, "nor shall I ever spend it too feed fat monks or lazy nuns. While my forest freres stay with me, and I can still use the limbs God hath given me, I will abide in the greenwood."
"Nevertheless," she often said: "forget not thy aunt and cousin here at Kirklees, and come when thou mayst desire."
Now it happened one day, late in the summer, that Robin felt giddy and ill, and resolved to go to Kirklees to be tended by his cousin.
"Go with me, Little John," said Robin, "for I feel I am an old man this day, and my mind is mazed."
"Ay, dear Robin, I will go with thee," said Little John, "but thy sickness will pass, I doubt not. I would that ye did not go into that nunnery, for ever when ye have gone, I ha' wondered as I waited under the trees without, whether I should see thy face again, or whether some evil trick would be played on thee."
"Nay, John,"said Robin, "they will play me no tricks. The women are my kinsfolk, and what enemies have we now?"
"I know not," replied John doubtfully, scratching his grizzled head; "but Hob o' the Hill hath heard that Sir Roger of Doncaster is friend to the nuns of Kirklees."
"An old man he is, as we are all," said Robin, "and I doubt not he thinketh little evil of me after all these years." "I know not," said John; "but an adder will bite though his poison be dry."
They prepared to horses and the rest go to Kirklees, Robin and John on of their band on foot. When they arrived at the edge of the forest which overlooked the nunnery, Little John and Robin dismounted, leaving the horses with the men, who were to hide in the woods until Robin returned. Then, supported by John's arm, Robin walked to the gate of Kirklees, where John left him.
"God preserve thee, dear Robin," he said, "and let thee come again soon to me. I have a fear upon me this day that something shall befall thee to our sorrow."
"Nay, nay, John," said Robin, "fear not. Sit thou in the shaw, and if I want thee I will blow my horn. I have my bow and my sword with me, and naught can harm me among these women."
So the two old comrades in arms parted with warm handclasps, and Robin knocked at the great iron ring upon the door. Very soon the door was opened by his aunt, who indeed had been watching his approach from a window.
"Come thou in, Robin," said she with wheedling tones, while her crafty eyes looked in his face with a sidelong furtive glance. She saw that he was ill, and a smile played over her thin lips. "Come in and have a jack of ale, for thou must be wearied after thy journey."
"I thank thee, dame," said Robin, and wearily he stepped in. "But I will neither eat nor drink until I have been blooded. Tell my cousin Alice I have come, I pray thee."
"Ah, Robin," said his aunt, "thou hast been long away from us, and thou hast not heard, I ween. Thy cousin died in her sleep in the spring, and now she lies under the churchyard mould."
"Sorry I am to hear that," replied Robin, and in the shock of the news he staggered and would have fallen, but that his aunt put her arm about him. "I _ I _ repent me," he went on, "that I came not oftener. Poor Alice! But I am ill, dame, do thou nick my arm and blood me, and soon I shall be well, and will trouble thee no more."
"Of a surety 'tis no trouble, good Robin," said the abbess, and she guided him into a room remote from the living rooms of the nunnery. She led him to a truckle bed which stood in one corner, and he lay down with a great sigh of relief. Then he bared his arm slowly, and the abbess took a little knife from a satchel which hung from her girdle. She held the brown arm, now much thinner than of yore, and with th~ point of her knife she cut deep into a thick blue vein. Then, having tied the arm so that he should not move it, she set a jar beneath the cut in the arm as it hung outside the bed.
Then she went from the room and quickly returned with some drink in a cup. "Drink this, good Robin," she said. "'Twill clear thee of the heaviness which is upon thee."
She raised Robin's head and he drank the liquor to the lees. With a sigh Robin sank back on his pillow and smiled as he said:
"Thanks, best thanks, good aunt. Thou art kind to a lawless man." He spoke drowsily; his head fell back upon the pillow and he began to breathe heavily. The drug which the abbess had placed in the cup was already working. The dame smiled wickedly, and she went to the door of the room and beckoned to some one outside. A man crept into the chamber _ an old, thin man, with white hair, sly, shifty eyes, and a weak, hanging lower lip. She pointed with one lean finger to the form of Robin Hood, and the old man's eyes shone at the sight. His gaze followed the drops of blood as they oozed from the cut vein and dripped into the jar beneath.
"If you were even a little like a man," she said scornfully, "you would draw your dagger and give him his death yourself _ not leave it to my lancet to let his life out drop by drop."
Robin stirred at the sound of her voice, and the thin old man turned and skipped from the room in terror. The abbess followed him, her beady black eyes bent upon his shifty looks. She drew a long key from her satchel and locked the door of the room where Robin lay.
"When will he be dead?" asked the old man in a whisper. "If the blood floweth freely, he will be dead by night!" said the abbess.
"But if it do not, and he dieth not?" said the old man. "Then I and Kirklees nunnery are richer by thirty acres of good meadow land," replied the abbess mockingly, "the gift of the good Sir Roger of Doncaster; and you, Sir Roger, will have to find some other way of killing this fox. Why dost thou not go in thyself and do it now?"
She held out the key to him, but he shrank away, his teeth gnawing at his finger-nails, his baleful eyes gleaming angrily at the mocking face of the abbess.
Sir Roger of Doncaster, coward and poltroon, had not the courage to slay a sick man, but turned and slunk away. He left the house and rode away, his chin sunk on his breast, enraged to think how the abbess despised him, and how she might yet outwit him in the wicked conspiracy they had made together for the slaying of Robin Hood.
Little John sat patiently in the shade of the forest trees all the afternoon. When the long shadows began to creep across the wolds he wondered why Robin had not appeared at the door as was his wont. In his anxiety Little John arose and walked impatiently up and down.
What was that? Faintly, from the direction of the nunnery, he heard three bugle blasts _ Robin's call!
With a roar like that of an enraged bull, Little John shouted to the men hiding in the thickets:
"Up lads! Heard ye those weary notes? Treachery is being done our poor master!"
Snatching up weapons, the whole band rushed after Little John, who ran at top speed to the nunnery gate. With blows from a hedge-pole they battered this in, and with the same weapon they beat down the door, and then amid the shrieks and prayers of the affrighted nuns they poured into the place.
Very cold and stern was Little John as he stood before the bevy of white-faced women.
"Ha' done with thy shrieking!" he said. "Find me the abbess."
But the abbess was nowhere to be found.
"Quick, then, lead me to where my master, Robin Hood, is lying."
But none knew of his having come to the nunnery. Full of wrath and sorrow and dread, John was about to order that the whole place be searched, when Hob o' the Hill pushed through the outlaws and said:"I ha' found where our master lies."
They stormed up the stairs after Hob, and having reached the door they broke the lock and rushed in. What a sight met their eyes! There was their master, white and haggard, with glazed eyes, half reclining upon the bed; so weak that hardly could he raise his head to them.
Little John threw himself on his knees beside Robin, tears streaming from his eyes.
"Master, master!" he cried. "A boon, a
boon!"
"What is it, John?" asked Robin, smiling wanly upon him, and raising his hand he placed it fondly on the grizzled head of his old comrade.
"That thou let us burn this house and slay those that have slain thee!"
Robin shook his head wearily.
"Nay, nay," he said: "that boon I'll not grant thee. I never hurt woman in all my life, and I'll not do it now at my end. She hath let my blood flow from me and hath taken my life, but I bid thee hurt her not. Now, John, I have not long to live. Open that casement there and give me my bow and an arrow."
They opened the casement wide, and Robin looked forth with dim, dying sight upon the quiet evening fields with the great rolling forest in the distance.
"Hold me while I shoot, John," said Robin, "and where my arrow falls there dig me a grave and let me lie."
Men wept as they stood and watched him hold the great bow in his feeble hand, and saw him draw the string while he held the feather of the arrow. Once he alone of all men could bend that bow, but now so spent was his life that his strength barely sufficed to draw it half-way. With a sigh he let go, the arrow boomed through the casement, and men watched with dim sight its flight over the fields until it came to ground beside a little path that led from the meadows up to the forest trees.
Robin fell back exhausted, and Little John laid him gently down.
"Lay me there, John," he said, "with my bow beside me, for that was my sweetest music while I lived, and I would have it lie with me when I am dead. Put a green sod under my head, and another at my feet, for I loved best to sleep on the greensward of the forest while I was alive, and I would lie upon them in my last sleep. Ye will do this all for me, John?"
"Ay, ay, master," said John, choking for sheer sorrow. "Now kiss me, John _ and _ and _ good-bye!"
The breath fluttered on his lips as John with uncovered head bent and kissed him. All sank to their knees and prayed for the passing soul, and with many tears they pleaded for mercy for their bold and generous leader.
They would not suffer his body to stay within the nunnery walls that night, but carried it to the greenwood, and watched beside it all through the dark. Then at dawn they prepared his grave, and when Father Tuck, white-haired and bent now, came at noon, all bore the body of their dear master to his last resting-place.
Afterward, the outlaws learned of Sir Roger of Doncaster's visit to the nunnery while Robin lay dying, and they sought for him far and wide. To escape the close search which Hob o' the Hill and Ket his brother made for him, Sir Roger fled to Grimsby, and barely escaped on board a ship with a whole skin, so close was Hob behind him. The knight sought refuge in France, and there he died shortly afterward, lonely and uncared for.
When Robin died, the band of outlaws speedily broke up. Some fled overseas, some hid in large towns and gradually became settled and respectable citizens, and others again hired themselves on distant manors and became law-abiding men, if their lords treated them not unkindly.
As for Little John and Scarlet, they were given lands at Cromwell, where Alan-a-Dale now was lord over the lands of the lady Alice; while Much was made bailiff at Werrisdale, which also belonged to Alan-a-Dale, his father, Sir Herbrand, being now dead.
Gilbert of the White Hand would not settle down. He became a great fighter in Scotland with the bow and the sword, and his deeds were sung for many years by many a fireside in the border lands.
What became of Hob o' the Hill and his brother Ket the Trow nobody ever knew for certain. The little men hated the ways of settled life, and though Alan-a-Dale offered them lands to live on, they preferred to wander in the dim forest and over the wild moors. The grave of Robin Hood was ever kept neat and verdant, though for a long time no one knew whose were the hands that did this. Then tales got abroad that at night two little men came out of the forest from time to time and put fresh plants on the grave and cut the edging turf clean. That these were Ket and Hob no one doubted, for they had loved Robin dearly while he lived, and now that he was dead they could never stray far from his grave.
The End
Henry Gilbert - Robin Hood Page 32