Page 320 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

the place, the leader of the band and four others entering
the room where the yeomen had been. But they found that
their birds had flown again, and that the King had been
balked a second time.
‘Methought that they were naughty fellows,’ said the
host, when he heard whom the men-at-arms sought. ‘But I
heard that blue-clad knave say that they would go straight
forward to Saint Albans; so, an ye hurry forward, ye may,
perchance, catch them on the highroad betwixt here and
there.’ For this news the leader of the band thanked mine
host right heartily, and, calling his men together, mounted
and set forth again, galloping forward to Saint Albans upon
a wild goose chase.
After Little John and Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale had
left the highway near garnet, they traveled toward the east-
ward, without stopping, as long as their legs could carry
them, until they came to Chelmsford, in Essex. Thence
they turned northward, and came through Cambridge and
Lincolnshire, to the good town of Gainsborough. Then,
striking to the westward and the south, they came at last
to the northern borders of Sherwood Forest, without in all
that time having met so much as a single band of the King’s
men. Eight days they journeyed thus ere they reached the
woodlands in safety, but when they got to the greenwood
glade, they found that Robin had not yet returned.
For Robin was not as lucky in getting back as his men
had been, as you shall presently hear.
After having left the great northern road, he turned his
face to the westward, and so came past Aylesbury, to fair

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