Page 389 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

show to the Sheriff, that he might raise all his armed men
to aid the others in their chase of Robin. So Sir William
and the Sheriff set forth to do the King’s bidding and to
search for Robin Hood; and for seven days they hunted up
and down, yet found him not.
Now, had Robin Hood been as peaceful as of old, every-
thing might have ended in smoke, as other such ventures
had always done before; but he had fought for years under
King Richard, and was changed from what he used to be. It
galled his pride to thus flee away before those sent against
him, as a chased fox flees from the hounds; so thus it came
about, at last, that Robin Hood and his yeomen met Sir
William and the Sheriff and their men in the forest, and a
bloody fight followed. The first man slain in that fight was
the Sheriff of Nottingham, for he fell from his horse with an
arrow in his brain ere half a score of shafts had been sped.
Many a better man than the Sheriff kissed the sod that day,
but at last, Sir William Dale being wounded and most of
his men slain, he withdrew, beaten, and left the forest. But
scores of good fellows were left behind him, stretched out
all stiff beneath the sweet green boughs.
But though Robin Hood had beaten off his enemies in fair
fight, all this lay heavily upon his mind, so that he brooded
over it until a fever seized upon him. For three days it held
him, and though he strove to fight it off, he was forced to
yield at last. Thus it came that, on the morning of the fourth
day, he called Little John to him, and told him that he could
not shake the fever from him, and that he would go to his
cousin, the prioress of the nunnery near Kirklees, in York-

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood