Page 395 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

ly he laid that which he held gently down, then, folding the
hands upon the breast and covering up the face, he turned
upon his heel and left the room without a word or a sound.
Upon the steep stairway he met the Prioress and some
of the chief among the sisters. To them he spoke in a deep,
quivering voice, and said he, ‘An ye go within a score of feet
of yonder room, I will tear down your rookery over your
heads so that not one stone shall be left upon another. Bear
my words well in mind, for I mean them.’ So saying, he
turned and left them, and they presently saw him running
rapidly across the open, through the falling of the dusk, un-
til he was swallowed up by the forest.
The early gray of the coming morn was just beginning to
lighten the black sky toward the eastward when Little John
and six more of the band came rapidly across the open to-
ward the nunnery. They saw no one, for the sisters were all
hidden away from sight, having been frightened by Little
John’s words. Up the stone stair they ran, and a great sound
of weeping was presently heard. After a while this ceased,
and then came the scuffling and shuffling of men’s feet as
they carried a heavy weight down the steep and winding
stairs. So they went forth from the nunnery, and, as they
passed through the doors thereof, a great, loud sound of
wailing arose from the glade that lay all dark in the dawn-
ing, as though many men, hidden in the shadows, had lifted
up their voices in sorrow.
Thus died Robin Hood, at Kirklees Nunnery, in fair
Yorkshire, with mercy in his heart toward those that had
been his undoing; for thus he showed mercy for the erring

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood