Page 108 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

grass.
Suddenly Robin Hood smote his knee.
‘By Saint Dunstan,’ quoth he, ‘I had nigh forgot that
quarter-day cometh on apace, and yet no cloth of Lincoln
green in all our store. It must be looked to, and that in quick
season. Come, busk thee, Little John! Stir those lazy bones
of thine, for thou must get thee straightway to our good
gossip, the draper Hugh Longshanks of Ancaster. Bid him
send us straightway twentyscore yards of fair cloth of Lin-
coln green; and mayhap the journey may take some of the
fat from off thy bones, that thou hast gotten from lazy living
at our dear Sheriff’s.’
‘Nay,’ muttered Little John (for he had heard so much
upon this score that he was sore upon the point), ‘nay, truly,
mayhap I have more flesh upon my joints than I once had,
yet, flesh or no flesh, I doubt not that I could still hold my
place and footing upon a narrow bridge against e’er a yeo-
man in Sherwood, or Nottinghamshire, for the matter of
that, even though he had no more fat about his bones than
thou hast, good master.’
At this reply a great shout of laughter went up, and all
looked at Robin Hood, for each man knew that Little John
spake of a certain fight that happened between their master
and himself, through which they first became acquainted.
‘Nay,’ quoth Robin Hood, laughing louder than all. ‘Heav-
en forbid that I should doubt thee, for I care for no taste of
thy staff myself, Little John. I must needs own that there are
those of my band can handle a seven-foot staff more deftly
than I; yet no man in all Nottinghamshire can draw gray

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