Diggery and Gilbert returned from their errands with word that Marian had not gone either to the nunnery or her kinsman’s manor; and the day drew on to evening. Robin had not rested, and scarcely eaten, since the search began; nor did he rest the following night, but still walked the forest deer-paths in the moonlight, his bedraggled finery more stained and tattered than before, his face haggard beneath his hood.
Dawn found him following a narrow track between the little villages of Sheffield and Worksop, not many miles from Dunwold Scar. It was a quiet dawn, giving promise of a glorious day later; but Robin, usually so alive to the beauty of the forest, did not see the shreds of mist among the trees, nor the lengthening catkins on the hazel sprays. On he went, moving wearily down the track, for he was very tired; and as he rounded the corner into a broad ride among the trees, he saw a figure seated on a fallen tree-trunk some twenty yards from him. The light was still bad, but he could see that it was a stripling boy in a rough tunic and great-hooded capuchin, who sat with elbows on knees and head sunk in cupped hands, a broadsword at his side and a round buckler lying on the turf at his feet.
Robin halted for a moment, and then went on. He took no particular pains to be silent, and a moment later a twig snapped sharply under his foot. Instantly the boy snatched up his buckler, and springing up, stood like some wild thing at bay. Robin could not see the face in the shadow of the great hood, but he liked the boy’s speed and his look of defiance, and called out to him, kindly enough: ‘Nay, my little game-cock, I mean you no harm.’
For answer, the boy gave an odd, short cry, and drawing his sword, made straight at Robin, shield up, blade raised to strike. Then Robin laughed grimly, and drawing his own sword, stepped forward to meet him.
They met, shield to shield, and their blades rang together. The boy was as quick on his feet as a wild cat, and as fierce; but he was no match for Robin, though the outlaw fought only on the defensive, contenting himself with warding off the blows aimed at him. At last, growing tired of the fight, Robin brought up his blade with a flash, and beat his assailant’s sword from his hand. The weapon flew wide, to land with a thud on the grass some way off. And then a strange thing happened, for the brave swordsman dropped his buckler, and sinking down upon the turf, held out imploring hands, and begged in a girl’s voice: ‘Mercy! Have mercy, good sir, and let me go away!’
For a long moment Robin remained staring down at the bowed figure; then he cast down his own sword, and stooping suddenly, put back the clumsy hood.
Long golden-brown hair flowed out over his hands, and next moment he had his lady in his arms. She had known him at the moment when he bent over her to put back her hood, and with a little glad cry laid her head against his breast like a tired child.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said at last, ‘what possessed you to do such a mad thing?’
‘Why, I am not such a poor swordsman after all,’ said Marian, between tears and laughter. ‘For you taught me yourself, Robin, long ago in Locksley Chase. And how was I to know you in those clothes? And when you came upon me so suddenly, I was afraid.’
‘And so you attacked me because you were afraid, my valiant lady?’ said Robin gently. ‘And as for these clothes: I put them on to play the minstrel at your wedding, meaning to bring you away to the Greenwood. But you had already flown—and I have been searching for you ever since.’
‘Oh, Robin, if I had only known! But I had no one to counsel me. I have been so unhappy since you were proclaimed an outlaw. I have had no word from you in all these years, and I did not know how to get a message to you when my father chose a husband for me and I was in need of your help. So at last I stole some food and a broadsword and took one of the scullions’ Sunday clothes, and came to look for you.’
‘Dear love,’ said Robin gravely, ‘I have sent you no word in all these years because I thought it best that you should forget me—wolfshead as I am. But now that you have come to me, why, Friar Tuck shall wed us this very day.’
So they set out for Dunwold Scar, walking hand in hand, and as blithe as birds on a tree, though both of them were very weary. And as they went, they talked together joyously, for they had many things to say to each other after the years they had been parted.
The sun was yet low in the blue sky of early morning when they came into the long forest-ride below the caves of the Scar, and the few outlaws who had been left there were moving about, collecting arrows and unstringing bows after the morning’s target practice. They came running to their leader—then, seeing his companion, checked a little shamefacedly, uncertain how to greet a lady (for Marian’s long hair still streamed loose about her shoulders and her face was no longer shadowed by her hood).
Robin saw their uncertainty and called his tall lieutenant out from the others. ‘Little John,’ said he, ‘this is my dear lady.’
Little John came forward and dropped on one knee before Marian, raising to his lips the hand which she held out to him. She looked down at him very kindly, saying: ‘So you are Little John? I have heard much of you already, though ’tis scarcely two hours since Robin found me.’
Little John flushed with pleasure beneath his tan, and from that moment was her staunch friend and devoted slave.
Then came the others, one by one, to bend the knee to her; and Marian turned from one to another, gravely, as Robin told her their names. Lastly came the gigantic friar, with his ban-dogs thrusting around him as usual. He took her hand, very kindly, in his, while the dogs stood round with stiff legs and quivering noses. They were enough to scare any maid, those great hounds, and Little John would have whistled them off; but Marian was used to dogs, and of a good courage, and she held out her hands to them, speaking to them softly. With pricked ears they came forward to sniff at her hands; the pack leader began to wag his tail, Orthros whined deep in his throat. They had accepted her into the band.
Robin turned away, and calling out three of his men, sent them off: Roger Lightfoot southward, George-a-Green westward, and Hob-o’-the-Hoar-Oak to the north, to begin the recall of his scattered band from their search.
‘And now,’ cried he, as the three men sank into the forest in their different directions, ‘food, Little John! Food—and a great deal of it!’
So Marian and Robin sat down side by side on the soft turf below the caves: he still in his bedraggled minstrel’s finery, she in the scullion’s Sunday clothes; and Little John brought them cold venison and manchet bread in a napkin of fine linen. They ate hungrily, while in the glade before them the outlaws continued with their daily tasks—though they often paused to glance aside at the lady.
The pale February sunshine dappled the turf, where the tiny green rosettes of the primroses were beginning to uncurl; the little brook which ran down one side of the glade sparkled between its rushy banks; a robin sang his heart out from the topmost branch of an oak tree, and in all broad Sherwood there were no happier people than Maid Marian and Robin Hood.
6
Robin Hood and the Potter of Wentbridge
ONCE AGAIN THE forest was a place of rustling leaves, and dancing sun-splashes on turf and tree-bole. The hawthorn trees were in bloom, and in the open parts of the forest the gorse flamed golden as though all the furze was afire.
Three months had passed since Marian came to the Greenwood. At first the outlaws had been shy of her, and shy of having a woman among them—‘And her a fine lady, too!’ as Hob-o’-the-Hoar-Oak said to Much-the-Miller’s-Son. But Marian had shown herself a worthy comrade. When Roger Lightfoot had cut his hand half off she had neither shrieked nor swooned, but held the edges of the gash together while Robin stitched it. She had not been afraid when there was an alarm of an attack, but had calmly strung her bow and taken her place beside Robin. She had not complained when the nights were cold. She took her turn at cooking and cleaning, and her place among the younger outlaws at the daily target-practice. Above all, she was friendly: laughing with them, sharing their joys and sorrows; and so, little by little, they grew to accept he
r as one of themselves, especially Friar Tuck’s dogs, who loved her dearly.
On this particular morning she had gone up with Robin to visit the pickets watching the Nottingham road for a rich merchant who they had heard was to pass that day. She stood looking away down the road: tall and slender as a birch tree in her long green gown, with her russet hair bound closely round her head. Her gown was of the same Lincoln cloth as the tunics of the wood-rangers, and the skirt was caught up through her belt so that it should not get in her way; under it she wore men’s long hose and rawhide shoes. There were four clothyard shafts in her belt, and she carried a bow which Will Scarlet had built for her. It was a light bow with a pull of thirty pounds—very different from the great bows with their lateral pull of a hundred pounds which none but Robin and Little John could bend—but already she could use it well.
It was very pleasant among the nut trees by the wayside, and very quiet, so that they heard the trit-trot of pony’s hooves and the trundling of cart wheels while they were yet a long way off.
‘Now, who comes here?’ said Robin softly, as the outlaws rose and moved back into the deeper shadows of the trees.
Little John remained where he was, gazing northward through a little opening between the nut trees. Then, as the trit-trot and the trundling drew nearer he laughed, and stepped back.
‘It is the proud Potter of Wentbridge. I know him of old—a stiff-necked creature, and he has never, to my knowledge, paid any toll for passing through the forest.’
‘Has he not?’ replied Robin. ‘By the powers, he shall do so now!’
A moment later he parted the nut bushes and stepped out into the road. A fat little pony was coming along the Nottingham road at a fast trot, drawing behind him a neat, small cart. Seated in the cart, among a pile of gaily coloured earthenware pots, was a large, burly man with a brown smock, a red face, and a jaunty pheasant’s feather in his slouch hat.
Robin stood waiting at the side of the road, and caught the pony’s bridle as it drew level with him. The fat little creature came to a docile halt at once, and Robin laughed up into the indignant face of the potter above him.
‘Come, Master Potter,’ said he. ‘Why such a surly visage? All I ask is that you pay me my just toll of silver; then you may go on your way unmolested.’
The potter’s usually pleasant face grew dark with rage. ‘Not a piece of my good silver do you see!’ he cried; and then, leaning down to look more closely at the tall man in green, demanded with sudden suspicion: ‘What might your name be?’
‘Men call me—Robin Hood,’ answered Robin, warily watching the potter’s face.
‘Do they?’ asked the man. ‘Do they indeed?’ And he leapt down from his little cart and hurled himself upon the outlaw.
Robin was ready for him, and the two came together in the middle of the road. The potter was a powerful man and, though he was a little shorter than Robin, he had a grip like the hug of a brown bear, and a face which did not seem to feel the blows which the other planted on it.
For a while they reeled to and fro, sometimes locked together, sometimes smiting joyously at arm’s length. At last Robin got in a strong left to the point of the jaw. The potter sagged for a moment, and then bore heavily forward. As Robin stepped back he caught his heel against a half-buried stone, and next instant lay flat on his back with his antagonist on top of him. He had hit his head in falling, and was half stunned, so that for a moment the potter had him at his mercy. Then the outlaws, who had been watching delightedly all this while, broke from cover and flung themselves upon the potter.
Little John was the first to reach him, Peterkin was the second, and then came all the rest of the picket, including Marian. They hauled the potter off his victim, rapped his head sharply on the hard road to mend his manners for him, and sat him up against the wheel of his own cart.
Robin was by this time also sitting up, and the two surveyed each other dizzily, rubbing their heads. Then they smiled, and getting slowly to his knees, Robin held out his hand in token of friendship. Still sitting against the wheel of his cart, the potter returned his grip warmly, and nodded.
‘Wolfshead you may be,’ he said; ‘but you’re a good man to fight!’
‘So are you,’ answered Robin, ‘though you are only a potter!’
‘Only a potter?’ cried the other. ‘Only a potter? Now by the saints in Heaven, I am minded to give you the trouncing you deserve, for you are an insolent puppy if ever there was one!’
Robin shook his head. ‘No, no, friend Potter, for my bones are still sore from the last one. But I see you have a bow in your cart—come and beat me at the butts instead.’
Now it was the potter’s turn to shake his head. ‘I am not such a fool as to pit myself for marksmanship against the best marksman in all the North Country. If you wish to show off your shooting, go to Nottingham, good lad. The sheriff is holding an archery contest this afternoon for his men-at-arms and any other folk who like to try their skill. Go and win the forty shillings he is offering as the prize.’
‘An archery contest, eh?’ said Robin thoughtfully; and then he laughed. ‘Yes, I will go to Nottingham. I will go at once. Friend Potter, will you lend me your clothes and cart?’
‘And what of my pots, may I ask?’
‘I will sell your pots for you—as well as even you could do yourself, I’ll warrant!’
Marian did not like him to run into needless danger, and looking at Little John’s gloomy face, she knew that he liked it no better than she did; but they knew better than to try talking Robin out of anything on which he had once set his mind. So Robin changed clothes with the potter and climbed into the little cart. The little pony, which had stood placidly all this time, started at once when he shook the reins, and broke into a trot. So pony, cart, pots, and make-believe potter disappeared round the corner of the road, and the trit-trot of hooves and the trundling of wheels grew quickly fainter in the distance.
The real potter, the outlaws, and Marian looked at one another. ‘The lad’s mad!’ exclaimed the potter.
Meanwhile, Robin was bowling gaily along the road in the sunshine, whistling to himself and the pony as blithely as a blackbird on a hawthorn branch.
It was yet early when he reached Nottingham, and, after leaving the pony and cart at an inn in Chandler’s Lane, he made his way to the market, carrying his wares with him in two great baskets. There he took up his pitch, arranging the pots round him, and began to cry his wares.
Soon he had attracted a large crowd and the housewives of the town began to press forward, handling the pots and admiring their shapes and the gay colours of the glaze. Robin sold cheaply, charging only threepence for five pots, and did such a roaring trade that by noon he had only five pots left. These he gathered into one of the baskets, and set out along the narrow cobbled streets towards the house of Ralf Murdoch, the sheriff.
The sheriff’s house was a fine building: heavily timbered, and gay with painted carvings above the door and windows. Robin mounted the milk-white steps to the door and beat upon the timbers with his clenched fist. When a servant came in answer to his summons, he gave her the pots, bidding her take them to her mistress as a gift from the Potter of Wentbridge.
The girl disappeared and Robin remained where he was, admiring the carved and painted garlands above the door, until a few moments later the sheriff’s wife came herself to thank him very prettily for his gift. ‘Such fine pots I never did see,’ she said. ‘Next time you come to Nottingham, Master Potter, bring me some more, and I will buy as many as you will sell me—especially if they are popinjay blue, like the largest of those you have given me, for I do dearly love popinjay blue.’
Robin bowed pompously and pretended to turn away; then he hesitated, sniffing loudly at the savoury smell of cooking which was beginning to steal out through the doorway. The sheriff’s wife was an hospitable soul, and she said at once: ‘Will you not stay and dine with us, Master Potter? You will be very welcome, both for the sake of your pots and
yourself.’
Robin bowed again. ‘I shall be very glad to dine with you,’ said he, ‘and I thank you for your hospitality, madam.’ And doffing his hat he followed her into the house.
The sheriff was in a bad temper, having just been worsted in a business deal; but surly as he was by nature, even he could not turn away a guest simply because of his own ill humour, for such churlish conduct would not look well in the Sheriff of Nottingham. So he grunted out a half-hearted welcome and, turning on his heel, left his wife and Robin to follow him into his hall, where the long trestle tables were already set for dinner.
Being only a potter, Robin did not sit among the sheriff’s friends at the high table, but among the men-at-arms and poorer folk farther down the hall. Little he cared, for the men-at-arms were better company than the fat merchants; and so he made a very merry meal and ate heartily of the sheriff’s roast beef and crusty bread, washing it down with draughts of ale out of a horn mug.
When the meal was over the diners got up, pulled each a forelock to the sheriff’s lady, and drifted out in ones and twos and little groups towards the archery-butts outside the town walls. Presently, the sheriff joined them with his lady, and Robin found himself standing quite close to them, with the rough walls of Nottingham behind him and a long space of smooth turf in front, blocked at either end by the hundred-paces-distant straw targets. Many of the townsfolk had gathered there to watch, some had brought their bows, meaning to compete for the forty shillings.
The first man-at-arms stepped out to shoot, and Robin watched him closely as he nocked his arrow and loosed; but the ari’ow sped down the range and missed its target altogether. Another man came forward, and again Robin watched; but as the afternoon wore on, and men-at-arms shot against townsmen, and townsmen against men-at-arms, he began to lose interest, for the marksmanship was poor, and not a single shaft struck within an arrow-length of the mark.