Page 64 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

Bear back! Else we be all dead men!’ Thereupon he reined
his horse backward through the thickest of the crowd.
Now Robin Hood and his band might have slain half
of the Sheriff’s men had they desired to do so, but they let
them push out of the press and get them gone, only sending
a bunch of arrows after them to hurry them in their flight.
‘Oh stay!’ shouted Will Stutely after the Sheriff. ‘Thou
wilt never catch bold Robin Hood if thou dost not stand
to meet him face to face.’ But the Sheriff, bowing along his
horse’s back, made no answer but only spurred the faster.
Then Will Stutely turned to Little John and looked him
in the face till the tears ran down from his eyes and he wept
aloud; and kissing his friend’s cheeks, ‘O Little John!’ quoth
he, ‘mine own true friend, and he that I love better than
man or woman in all the world beside! Little did I reckon
to see thy face this day, or to meet thee this side Paradise.’
Little John could make no answer, but wept also.
Then Robin Hood gathered his band together in a close
rank, with Will Stutely in the midst, and thus they moved
slowly away toward Sherwood, and were gone, as a storm
cloud moves away from the spot where a tempest has swept
the land. But they left ten of the Sheriff’s men lying along
the ground wounded— some more, some less—yet no one
knew who smote them down.
Thus the Sheriff of Nottingham tried thrice to take Robin
Hood and failed each time; and the last time he was fright-
ened, for he felt how near he had come to losing his life; so
he said, ‘These men fear neither God nor man, nor king nor
king’s officers. I would sooner lose mine office than my life,