Page 293 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

head covering of burnished steel set with rivets of gold, and
underneath his jerkin a coat of linked mail, as fine as card-
ed wool, yet so tough that no arrow could pierce it. Then,
seeing all were ready, young Partington mounted his horse
again, and the yeomen having shaken hands all around, the
five departed upon their way.
That night they took up their inn in Melton Mowbray,
in Leicestershire, and the next night they lodged at Ketter-
ing, in Northamptonshire; and the next at Bedford Town;
and the next at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire. This place they
left not long after the middle of the night, and traveling fast
through the tender dawning of the summer day, when the
dews lay shining on the meadows and faint mists hung in
the dales, when the birds sang their sweetest and the cob-
webs beneath the hedges glimmered like fairy cloth of silver,
they came at last to the towers and walls of famous London
Town, while the morn was still young and all golden toward
the east.
Queen Eleanor sat in her royal bower, through the open
casements of which poured the sweet yellow sunshine in
great floods of golden light. All about her stood her la-
dies-in-waiting chatting in low voices, while she herself sat
dreamily where the mild air came softly drifting into the
room laden with the fresh perfumes of the sweet red ros-
es that bloomed in the great garden beneath the wall. To
her came one who said that her page, Richard Partington,
and four stout yeomen waited her pleasure in the court be-
low. Then Queen Eleanor arose joyously and bade them be
straightway shown into her presence.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood