Reaching Kinley Scar, they dropped into it, and made their way down the narrow gully until, some way ahead of them, they could see the evening sunshine of open country glimmering between the tree trunks. For a short distance farther they continued; then Robin signed to them to remain where they were, and went on alone, save for Much, who came with him to act as messenger.
Right down to the woodshore Robin went, with the little brown man moving close behind him. The last few yards he drew himself forward on his stomach, until, parting the brambles and dry goats’-parsley stems, he could look out between the tangle of wild fruit-trees and see the whole sweep of the dale before him. He saw Barnaby’s body lying where he had fallen, and five dead men-at-arms laid side by side at a little distance where their comrades had dragged them. He saw the Poitevins lounging beneath the elm-tree, and Sir Roger of Doncaster striding impatiently up and down, and biting his fingers as he had done on that night long ago when Marian had not come down to her wedding; and he saw also the huge figure of Little John, bound to the tree trunk, and the empty noose dangling close beside him.
‘There’ll be no need to break open Pomfret Town this night, Friend Much,’ Robin whispered. ‘Go back to the others; tell them Little John is safe as yet, and bid them make no move until I give them the word.’
Much nodded in reply and drew back into the undergrowth. In a little while he was back, as silently as he had gone, and lying beside Robin again, his small bright eyes fixed on the men-at-arms below in the dale.
The two waited patiently, watching those figures around the fire and the elm-tree. If the Poitevins made any move to hang Little John, Robin would lead his men down to the attack at once, but until the reinforcements from the Stane Ley should arrive the band was well under half strength, and there were four-score or more of the enemy. Such odds were not to be taken on lightly; so they waited, just as the men in the dale were doing.
And Robin guessed that it was Sir Guy of Gisborne’s return that they awaited, before hanging their captive; and he smiled grimly to himself.
It seemed a long while before there was a faint movement in the undergrowth behind him, and Will-the-Bowman slid up to his side, whispering: ‘We be here, Master.’
‘Good!’ Robin whispered back, and to Much: ‘Do you remain here on watch, and bring me word if they make any move.’
He drew himself slowly backward, followed by Will, until well out of sight of those in the open glade, and getting to his feet went silently up the Scar to his waiting men. It took but a short while to give them their orders, to see half of them, under Will Stukely, swarm up the steep sides of the gully and disappear among the thick bushes at the top, and the remaining half standing ready at their posts just within the woodshore.
Then, standing among them, Robin set Sir Guy of Gisborne’s bugle-horn to his lips and sounded the Morte, the call which hunters wind when the quarry has been slain.
In the open dale men scrambled to their feet, Sir Roger ceased his impatient prowling to and fro, and every face was turned towards the verge of the forest.
‘Yon was Sir Guy of Gisborne’s horn, surely,’ said one man.
‘Aye, and he sounds the Morte,’ added another. ‘That must be for a sign that he has slain Robin Hood.’
Sir Roger said nothing, but the evil joy on his face as he scanned the forest verge showed that he was of the same belief.
Little John twisted round against his bonds, and saw the strange figure in its horse’s hide appear among the wild fruit-trees; and the shouted greetings of the Poitevins told him that it was Sir Guy of Gisborne. He was still hazy with loss of blood, and scarcely wondered at the evil knight’s disguise. His only thought was that this was Sir Guy of Gisborne, and that Sir Guy had sounded the Morte for Robin Hood.
Robin was dead, then. Well, it was a small matter, and he, Little John, would soon be going to join him.
Down the shallow slope of the dale came Robin Hood, taking care to walk so that the sun was behind him and his face in shadow; and imitating the dead knight’s voice, he cried out: ‘What bird have you netted, Friend Roger? Surely it is not Little John?’
‘Yes, that same rogue, and none other,’ answered Sir Roger, with an ugly laugh. ‘We waited for your coming before we hanged him, lest you should call us selfish dogs for keeping the pleasure to ourselves!’
‘And assuredly I would have done so!’ replied Robin. ‘I have slain the master, Sweet Roger, and now I shall give myself the pleasure of spitting upon the man!’ And taking care to keep his face still in the shadow, he strode among the men-at-arms, who parted in a rather surly manner to let him through. Only when he was very close did Little John turn his head and look into his face; and the shock of what the tall outlaw saw there cleared away the mists that had seemed to clog his brain, as a dousing of cold water clears away sleep. For an instant he grew tense as a drawn bow, and there was the merest flicker of recognition in his eyes, before he schooled his face to a look of scorn.
‘Aye, it’s myself, John,’ Robin muttered. He leaned close, as though to carry out his threat of spitting upon the captive. Little John thrust out his bound hands, and Robin’s hunting-dagger flickered twice in the shadows as he slashed first the cords about the other’s wrists and then the bonds that held him to the trunk of the elm-tree.
Between the first stroke and the second there arose a roar of fury from the men-at-arms, and Robin had only time to draw his sword and set his back to the tree trunk before they were on him from all quarters. Little John seemed to have forgotten his wounds. He laughed, short and harsh, and kicking aside his bonds, leapt upon the nearest of the attackers and wrested his sword from him, hurling him back upon his comrades so that two or three of them were brought down with a crash.
Hardly had he done so when there arose other shouts and yells from the hindermost of the mob, and in among the Poitevins came thrusting a sturdy arrowhead of men in Lincoln green, their good blades biting deep as they advanced.
For a moment the men-at-arms gave way in dismay before the sudden onslaught; then, when they realized how few were the green-clad men, they flung themselves upon them, howling for blood. The outlaw band were out-numbered nearly three to one, but they fought joyously, their darting blades seeming to have a life of their own, so swift were they, so bright and full of menace. And now, leaving the elm-tree bole which had protected their backs, Robin and Little John pressed forward into the mêlée, and fighting shoulder to shoulder, broke through to join their own men.
Instantly the outlaws began to retreat. Steadily they drew back towards the mouth of the Scar, hard-pressed by the Poitevins but still fighting with the same grim joyousness; back and back until the trees of the forest were all about them. Several of the enemy lay dead on the sunlit turf, yet three green-clad figures lay among them; and many of the outlaws were wounded, seeing which the Poitevins yelled in savage triumph, and surged after them into the shadows of the forest, all caution forgotten in their lust to kill.
But Sir Roger of Doncaster hung back on the woodshore, content to watch others wreak his revenge for him, without risking his own skin.
Fighting from tree to tree, the outlaws fell back slowly, until the sides of the gully grew steep on either hand; and as they retreated, the mercenaries pressed forward, clinging like a wolf-pack around their flanks.
Then death came humming like a flight of hornets down from the wooded sides of the Scar, and eleven of the Poitevins fell. Almost before the rest realized their danger another pitiless flight of clothyard shafts thrummed into their midst, spreading death and confusion among them. An instant later the arrows were followed by half-a-hundred wood-rangers, who came leaping down through the trees and bushes to fling themselves upon the disordered men-at-arms.
Outmanœuvred and taken by surprise, the Poitevins turned desperately to fight their way back to open country. But not one of them ever reached it. The Englishmen hated these foreign devils too well to show them any mercy now. With every sword-thrust that foun
d its home in an evil heart they were avenging old wrongs—and there were many wrongs to be avenged.
When it was all over, there was no sign of Sir Roger of Doncaster; for he had made his escape, leaving his henchmen to their fate. The blue twilight was rising in the little valley where men lay dead, thickly piled upon each other or sprawling singly in uncouth attitudes among the berry-laden hawthorn bushes. But beyond the mouth of the Scar the last rays of the autumn sunset lay honey-gold across the open country.
The outlaws gathered their own dead, and scooping out a wide, shallow grave in the soft ground of the woodshore, laid them there, side by side, each man with his bow beside him, and turned the green sods back over them.
The blue dusk had deepened almost to night before all was done; and Robin and Little John stood together in the mouth of the Scar, while the rest of the outlaws were making ready for the long homeward march.
‘The last time we tried that trick, it was nigh on thirty years ago,’ said Robin, ‘and Will-the-Bowman was the captive to be rescued.’
Little John smiled grimly. ‘It’s a good trick, though not one to be too often repeated.’
‘Why, that can be said of most tricks; it is always as well to give people time to forget—before trying them again.’
‘This day’s work will not be forgotten in a hurry, when once it comes to be known.’
‘No,’ said Robin, after a moment’s pause. ‘It has been a good day’s work, for though Roger of Doncaster has saved his cowardly skin, the countryside will sleep the quieter at nights because his evil horde are no more. A good day’s work, John, but a costly one for us.’
‘Seven men we have lost,’ replied the other. ‘God rest their brave souls.’
For a little while Robin stood silent. He hated to lose any of his men, and Barnaby was the last of the four farm-lads who had come with him to the Greenwood on that far-off day when Trusty had been slain.
Then he turned away and went to join the rest of his band, saying cheerily: ‘That was a good fight, lads, and the world will be a sweeter place now that yonder Poitevin devils are out of it!’
The outlaws had chosen to make the long march back to the Stane Ley that night, rather than camp until morning, since they had with them neither food nor the means of attending properly to the wounded; and so, before the moon had risen high enough to shine down upon the dead men in Kinley Scar, Robin Hood and his band were well on their homeward way.
And Sir Roger of Doncaster went south towards his own manor at breakneck speed, mouthing curses to himself at every step and biting at his fingers until they bled. ‘Plague and pestilence upon that Robin of Barnesdale! Mortal man cannot stand against him. He is surely a devil! A devil!’ cried Sir Roger, and shook his bitten fist at the rising moon.
14
How Robin of Barnesdale loosed his last Arrow
NEVER AGAIN DID Sir Roger of Doncaster make any attack on Robin Hood in his own forest. But he did not give up hope of his revenge; indeed he hugged it to him closer and closer as the years went by, brooding over it until he could think of nothing else.
As he sat in his gloomy manor house, word came to him from time to time of Robin and his outlaw band: word of some daring rescue, tidings of justice done upon a tyrannical overlord, or a pitched battle between the outlaws and some raiding party of the king’s army. So Sir Roger heard how the wood-rangers had taught young Squire Stephen of Thurgoland to mend his ill treatment of his mother; how they had rescued three young brothers from under the very nose of the Sheriff of Nottingham; and how they had fought a little war against the mossmen who came reaving over the Border, and had driven the proud Douglases and Armstrongs back into Scotland; and he heard also the tale which had set all the forest country laughing: of how Robin had waylaid His Grace the Bishop of Hereford and forced him to dance without his boots.
These tidings of his enemy drove Sir Roger of Doncaster almost crazy with malice, yet he must always be listening for more; for now, whether he sat at meat in his gloomy hall or rode hawking in his chase, he could think of nothing but Robin Hood and his longing to be revenged upon him.
One day news came to Sir Roger, brought by a trembling villein in hope of favour, that the outlaw chief had been wounded in the thigh while fighting against the marauding Scots of Westmorland, and was direly sick of the wound. Sir Roger rewarded the man with a gold noble; and that night he sat late over his wine, staring in front of him down his long hall, with an evil joy on his face as he thought of his enemy’s plight, or biting his fingers when he bethought him that after all the tidings might be false.
But the tidings were not false. Robin lay in his summer quarters at the Stane Ley, with a great wound in his thigh; and for a little while he seemed very likely to die, for all Little John’s tender nursing.
The wound healed at last, but from that time forward all was not well with Robin of Barnesdale. For months at a time he would be well and strong as ever, but there were times when the old scar grew angry and inflamed, and fever ran hot in his veins. Sometimes the sickness would be slight and pass swiftly under Little John’s rough yet skilful doctoring; but at others it would last for many days, and rather than burden his band with a sick man to care for, Robin would betake himself to Kirklees Nunnery, where his cousin Ursula was now the abbess. She was skilled in herb-lore and medicine, and would bleed him and give him cool herbal brews to quell his fever, and spread soothing salves on the old, aching scar; and in a day or two the outlaw chief would be whole again, and go back to his waiting men in the Greenwood.
All this was known to Sir Roger of Doncaster, and inside his cunning brain an evil plan began to grow.
One day in early summer he paid a visit to the Abbess of Kirklees Nunnery. A fair and gracious place was the nunnery, set in a wide bow of Sherwood Forest, amid quiet fields where the wheat was tall and green and hay-harvest had not yet begun. The steward’s house, with its shingle roof, and the bracken-thatched hovels of the farm villeins clustered not far from the grey walls of the nunnery, each with its little bean-patch and herb-plot, and a little way off the fish-pond reflected the sky silverly between the pollard willows which ringed it round.
Sir Roger rode down into the shallow dale, and handing his horse over to the care of a villein made his way to a small, strong door set deep in the wall of the nunnery garden. He beat with the pommel of his sword upon the door-timbers, and a stout portress came in answer to his summons, who after inspecting him through a grill gave him entrance and led him up through the roses, sweet-rocket and clove carnations to the door of the hall.
In a narrow, white-walled chamber smelling of bees-wax, he spoke with Abbess Ursula as she stood beside the window. She was a tall old woman, with a smooth pale face long schooled to wear a saintly expression, yet her eyes had the cold, shallow glitter of glass, and her hands, which moved ceaselessly over the beads of her rosary, were cruel and greedy as the talons of a bird of prey, for all that they were so soft and white.
They had exchanged formal greetings, Sir Roger had apologized for intruding upon her, and now he began to speak politely of the richness of the nunnery lands.
The abbess listened to him courteously, then said she: ‘The lands of Kirklees are famed for their richness, as our garden is farmed for its herbs—and indeed it is just as well that it should be so, for we have barely enough land for the upkeep of so large a religious house.’
‘Should you not like to add to the nunnery lands, then, Holy Mother?’ asked Sir Roger, and then added slowly: ‘I have thirty acres of good corn-land not above three miles from here, and possibly I might be able to spare them.’
The Abbess Ursula made no reply, but she looked at him closely, and waited for him to go on.
‘Should you not like to add thirty acres of corn-land to the nunnery estates?’
‘Oh my son,’ replied the abbess in a pious voice; ‘the blessings of the Saints be upon you for the gift!’
Sir Roger shook his head with an evil smile. ‘It is n
o gift for the good of my soul that I offer, Holy Mother, but payment for a certain service.’
‘A certain service?’ asked the abbess softly. ‘And what might that be?’
The old knight bent his head and continued: ‘I have heard it said that a certain cousin of yours comes here at times, to be physicked for an ancient wound that troubles him.’
‘That is so.’
‘And it is likely that he will come again?’
‘It is certain,’ replied Abbess Ursula. ‘For no one else can heal him as surely as I can, since no one else has my knowledge of herbs.’
‘Doubtless you have often bled him also,’ said Sir Roger, hurriedly. ‘Blood-letting is the best way of cooling a fever, as I have heard; and I have heard also that it is sometimes easy for too much blood to flow, and the patient die.’ As he spoke, he glanced over his shoulder, as though afraid someone might have overheard him.
The abbess ceased fingering her beads, turned from the window with a slow swirl of her black habit, and came close to her visitor. ‘Thirty acres of corn-land for the death of your enemy?’ said she.
Sir Roger drew back from her, crossing himself. His pale face had grown livid. ‘I did not say it!’
‘No, you did not say it,’ said the abbess contemptuously. ‘You have not the courage to order the murder of your enemy in so many words, lest the walls should overhear you! The walls have no ears, man, and they are too thick for anyone outside to overhear anything which passes in this room!’
The old knight licked his dry lips and summoned up a smile. ‘Ah, now, Holy Mother, you are too hard upon me. It is as well to be careful in these matters. But—is it a bargain?’