Page 362 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

day that should bring the King into the town would never
come; but all the same it did come in its own season, and
bright shone the sun down into the stony streets, which
were all alive with a restless sea of people. On either side of
the way great crowds of town and country folk stood packed
as close together as dried herring in a box, so that the Sher-
iffs men, halberds in hands, could hardly press them back to
leave space for the King’s riding.
‘Take care whom thou pushest against!’ cried a great, bur-
ly friar to one of these men. ‘Wouldst thou dig thine elbows
into me, sirrah? By’r Lady of the Fountain, an thou dost not
treat me with more deference I will crack thy knave’s pate
for thee, even though thou be one of the mighty Sheriff’s
men.’
At this a great shout of laughter arose from a number of
tall yeomen in Lincoln green that were scattered through the
crowd thereabouts; but one that seemed of more authority
than the others nudged the holy man with his elbow. ‘Peace,
Tuck,’ said he, ‘didst thou not promise me, ere thou camest
here, that thou wouldst put a check upon thy tongue?’
‘Ay, marry,’ grumbled the other, ‘but ‘a did not think to
have a hard-footed knave trample all over my poor toes as
though they were no more than so many acorns in the for-
est.’
But of a sudden all this bickering ceased, for a clear
sound of many bugle horns came winding down the street.
Then all the people craned their necks and gazed in the di-
rection whence the sound came, and the crowding and the
pushing and the swaying grew greater than ever. And now

1