Page 288 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

Robin Hood Shoots

Before Queen Eleanor

HE HIGHROAD stretched white and dusty in the hot
Tsummer afternoon sun, and the trees stood motionless
along the roadside. All across the meadow lands the hot air
danced and quivered, and in the limpid waters of the low-
land brook, spanned by a little stone bridge, the fish hung
motionless above the yellow gravel, and the dragonfly sat
quite still, perched upon the sharp tip of a spike of the rush-
es, with its wings glistening in the sun.
Along the road a youth came riding upon a fair milk-
white barb, and the folk that he passed stopped and turned
and looked after him, for never had so lovely a lad or one
so gaily clad been seen in Nottingham before. He could not
have been more than sixteen years of age, and was as fair as
any maiden. His long yellow hair flowed behind him as he
rode along, all clad in silk and velvet, with jewels flashing
and dagger jingling against the pommel of the saddle. Thus
came the Queen’s Page, young Richard Partington, from fa-
mous London Town down into Nottinghamshire, upon Her
Majesty’s bidding, to seek Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest.
The road was hot and dusty and his journey had been
long, for that day he had come all the way from Leicester
Town, a good twenty miles and more; wherefore young Par-