Robin Hood, Paul Creswick [world of reading .txt] 📗

he did mightily scare me when first the distemper showed in him. He sliced me with the spit. See how my head is cut, and my cheek shows you how his horrid teeth did meet in my flesh."

"Did he indeed bite you, Master Nailor?"

"By my bones, he bit and tore me like a wild beast. But since I am so big and not fearful of him I will e'en watch him through the night, unless you choose to do service, Mickleham?"

Mickleham swore roundly that he would not.

"Then get you gone, gossip," said the giant, busying himself with the fire. "'Tis late: and my lord of Hereford has business abroad at an early hour."

He bade Robin go back into the buttery and stay there until dawn, there being no chance of escape out of the castle at this hour. "Play your part, Locksley, and avoid the Bishop's eyes—even as have I. We may meet on the morrow."

"You have not betrayed us, Little John?"

"Roger the cook was to have sold you. Therefore have I quietened him for the nonce. Here's my hand on it, Locksley: that Little John is loyal. But I do not love Stuteley yet."

"It will come in time," answered Robin, sleepily. "You are both sound fellows. Give you good night, honest John. I'll sleep none the worse for my pillow." He stretched himself amid the trampled rushes of the buttery, and laid his head upon the prone body of one of the sleeping butchers. Full a dozen of them had fallen into slumber to the Sheriffs rush-bottomed buttery floor.

Little John went back to the kitchen and there carefully and silently collected Master Monceux's gold plate. He put it all into a stout sack, tied it up, and waited patiently for dawn.

CHAPTER XIX

Robin woke from a heavy slumber at daybreak. A faint noise from without the buttery disturbed him. He very quietly rose up, and, picking his way across the room, came to the entrance to the kitchens. He opened one of the doors and found a passage, grey-lit by the first gleam of dawn.

At the end of it was the figure of a man. His height revealed him for Little John. Over his shoulders was a short sack.

Seeing Robin, he beckoned to him; then whispered his plans. But Robin did not intend to leave Nottingham so soon.

"Go, Little John, and take that which is in your sack——"

"I shall bring it to you, gossip," spoke Little John, in a muffled voice: "to your haunts in Barnesdale. You shall see who is the better servant—Stuteley or myself. Here have I the Sheriff's plate——"

An audacious notion flashed upon Robin.

"Take it to our cave in Barnesdale, honest John," said he, swiftly, indicating the sack, "and, harkee; I will follow later with such a guest as never our greenwood has yet carried. Lay out a royal feast and kill one of the fattest bucks. Take my dagger in token to them that I have sent you."

"Who will you bring with you, gossip? Not my lord of Hereford?"

"I will bring Monceux himself," said Robin, boldly. "Leave the business in my hands. Go now, if you know a safe road from out of this place."

"I have a friend at the gate who will ask me no questions," answered Little John, softly. "But you?"

"My wit shall lead me out from Nottingham," Robin told him.

Little John let himself out by one of the postern doors, and found means to convey the Sheriff's plate through the streets. Afterwards when he reached the gate, he continued to win his passage by pure statesmanship, pretending that he had been sent out at that strange hour to snare young rabbits for his lord's breakfast!

Meanwhile, Robin returned to the buttery, and waited for events to shape themselves. Ere long the butchers began yawning and quarrelling betwixt themselves; and Robin artfully persuaded them, by setting one against the other, to a free fight.

The servants separated them, and in anger bade them all begone. Robin besought them to let him stay, saying that he wished an audience with my lord the Sheriff.

"Out upon you, pestilent fellow!" cried one of the servants. "You scum of the earth! This comes of hobnobbing with such rascals. Go hence quickly, with your fellows, or we will break all your bones."

So were they all bustled out into the cold streets, and Robin, in his butcher's smock, went back, as if very crest-fallen, to his empty cart and lean horse.

In due season the servants found that the Sheriff's new kitchen-hand was gone, and with him the gold plate. Then they remembered how he had been found with the cook.

Roger was plucked out of his bed, with all his bruises and wounds upon him, to give evidence before Monceux, who was in a great fume. All that spite and jealousy might do Roger performed with gusto, and so fixed the blame upon Little John that no one else was even suspected.

Roger would have now spoken as to Barnesdale, and betrayed the secret caves to the Sheriff; but he had once before persuaded them to search the cave near Gamewell, with ill results.

"Enough of these tales," snarled the Sheriff; "keep them for the Bishop's ears. I am concerned for my plate; and will recover it ere I put forth on any other enterprise."

He sent out his archers and men-at-arms, with such an incoherent description of Little John that near all the tall men of Nottingham were brought under arrest. The gate-keeper who had been so foolish as to open to Little John became so fearful of the Sheriff's anger that, when they questioned him, he vowed by all the saints that he had clapped eyes on no such fellow in his life.

Monceux, getting more and more enraged, chanced at last upon the butchers. He bade them all to be brought before him.

Small comfort did he gather from any, least of all from Robin, who behaved in so foolish a manner before the great man that all who had not believed him crazy before, were now well sure of it.

He would persist in talking to the irate lord of his own affairs: how he had just inherited a farm with many head of cattle—such beasts! how he had sold some of them in the market on the previous day for large moneys; how he intended to always sell at Nottingham, since there the people were so rich and generous.

"I have full five hundred and ten horned beasts upon my land that I will sell for a just figure," said Robin. "Ay, to him who will pay me in right money will I sell them for twenty pieces. Is that too much to ask, lording?"

Monceux, in the midst of his frenzy, suddenly quieted down. This was the idiot butcher of whom people had been chattering. No use to bluster and threaten him.

Five hundred and ten fat beasts for twenty pieces! Was ever such a fool? "I'll buy your beasts of you, butcher," said Monceux, "and will give you twice the money you ask."

At this Robin was quite overcome, and fell to praising him to the skies. For the moment the missing plate was forgotten.

"Drive in your beasts, butcher," said Monceux.

"They are but at Gamewell, excellence," said Robin; "not more than a mile beyond it at most. Will you not come and choose your own beasts? The day is fine."

The Sheriff dismissed all but Robin, in order that they might settle it quietly. If he did not close upon this bargain straightway it would be lost to him.

After some hesitation, "I will go with you, butcher," spoke Master Monceux. After all, what had he to fear? Surely no man, be he ever so wicked and desperate an outlaw, would dare to lay hands upon the Sheriff of Nottingham!

Monceux had all along suspected the Bishop of Hereford's story. There were no robbers in Sherwood now—the Bishop had invented the tale in order to cover up some disgraceful carousal, and had bribed his men. It had been a plot by which my lord of Hereford had been able to foist himself and his company upon the Sheriff, and so gain both free lodging in Nottingham and save giving in charity to the poor folk of the town.

Thus Master Monceux argued swiftly within himself.

"Get ready, butcher, for," he said, briskly, "I will join you in a few minutes."

He laid a solemn and dreadful charge upon the captain of his men-at-arms and upon those of his household to find him his plate ere he returned. He swore that their own goods should be seized and sold if they failed him in this matter!

Then he affected to be going in secret search himself.

So the two of them, without guard, went off together, Robin driving his shambling horse and rickety cart beside the Sheriff's little fat brown pony.

They passed through the gate, and Monceux left word there that his archers were to follow him to Gamewell so soon as they had returned from their searching for his plate.

Robin was very gay, and kept the Sheriff amused with his foolish chattering. Monceux congratulated himself more and more.

They had drawn nigh to Gamewell, and to that little gravel-pit wherein was one of the hidden passages to the Barnesdale caves. Peering irresolute through the tree-trunks far off to their right, Robin spied a herd of deer.

They stood and trembled at sight of Robin and the Sheriff, preparing to stampede.

Robin guessed that they had been driven by the greenwood men all that day—that perchance Stuteley and the rest were near the beasts, in ambush. Reining in his lean horse, he turned in his cart to call to the Sheriff.

"See, excellence, here are my beasts, coming to welcome me! Now choose those which your eyes like and pay me the gold."

Monceux saw then that he had been duped, and flew into a terrible passion. Robin cut his reproaches very short, however; and, taking off his butcher's smock, blew on his horn that short, queer signal.

The Sheriff turned to fly, but had not travelled a hundred yards ere, hearing an uncomfortable hissing sound, made by an arrow, as it flew just over his head, thought it better to stop. Robin had hidden his bow and quiver in the straw at the bottom of the butcher's cart. He now stood up and sped his shafts all round and about the poor Sheriff.

Then Monceux reined up his fat pony and surrendered himself grudgingly, trying to bargain all the while. "If I give you my horse, and a golden penny, will you let me go, butcher?" said he, whiningly. "Did I not treat you well last night, giving you a fair supper and much ale? This is ill requiting my usage of you, butcher."

Suddenly he saw himself surrounded by the men of the greenwood, headed by Stuteley. Robin nodded, and in a moment the Sheriff was seized and hurried away to the gravel-pit, and his pony was set galloping in the direction of Nottingham with empty saddle.

The greenwood men soon brought their captive through the dangerous passage, having first blindfolded him. Within five hours of his departure from Nottingham my lord the Sheriff found himself in a strange, unknown part of Sherwood, seated amongst two score and ten wild fellows, to a wilder meal of venison, brown bread, and wine.

With a shock of surprise he saw that the hot, juicy portion of the King's beast handed to him as his share was smoking fragrantly upon a golden plate. He glanced around from the merry faces of the lawless men to the dishes and plates from which they were eating. All were of gold and very familiar.

His rolling eye encountered that of Little John's, coolly helping himself to a second serve. "You rascal! you rogue!" spluttered Monceux. "You scum of the kitchens! Where is my plate? You