Page 281 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

him down to rest upon the grassy bank in front of it. ‘It
groweth nigh time,’ quoth he to himself, ‘that I were get-
ting back again to Sherwood; yet it would please me well to
have one more merry adventure ere I go back again to my
jolly band.’
So he looked up the road and down the road to see who
might come, until at last he saw someone drawing near, rid-
ing upon a horse. When the traveler came nigh enough for
him to see him well, Robin laughed, for a strange enough
figure he cut. He was a thin, wizened man, and, to look upon
him, you could not tell whether he was thirty years old or
sixty, so dried up was he even to skin and bone. As for the
nag, it was as thin as the rider, and both looked as though
they had been baked in Mother Huddle’s Oven, where folk
are dried up so that they live forever.
But although Robin laughed at the droll sight, he knew
the wayfarer to be a certain rich corn engrosser of Worksop,
who more than once had bought all the grain in the coun-
tryside and held it till it reached even famine prices, thus
making much money from the needs of poor people, and
for this he was hated far and near by everyone that knew
aught of him.
So, after a while, the Corn Engrosser came riding up to
where Robin sat; whereupon merry Robin stepped straight-
way forth, in all his rags and tatters, his bags and pouches
dangling about him, and laid his hand upon the horse’s bri-
dle rein, calling upon the other to stop.
‘Who art thou, fellow, that doth dare to stop me thus
upon the King’s highway?’ said the lean man, in a dry, sour

0 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood