hawk.  Seeing that his strength was going from him, Robin leaped forward, and, quick as a flash, struck a back-handed blow beneath the sword arm.  Down fell the sword from Guy of Gisbourne’s grasp, and back he staggered at the stroke, and, ere he could regain himself, Robin’s sword passed through and through his body.  Round he spun upon his heel, and, flinging his hands aloft with a shrill, wild cry, fell prone upon his face upon the green sod.

Then Robin Hood wiped his sword and thrust it back into the scabbard, and, coming to where Guy of Gisbourne lay, he stood over him with folded arms, talking to himself the while.  “This is the first man I have slain since I shot the Kings forester in the hot days of my youth.  I ofttimes think bitterly, even yet, of that first life I took, but of this I am as glad as though I had slain a wild boar that laid waste a fair country.  Since the Sheriff of Nottingham hath sent such a one as this against me, I will put on the fellow’s garb and go forth to see whether I may not find his worship, and perchance pay him back some of the debt I owe him upon this score.”

So saying, Robin Hood stripped the hairy garments from off the dead man, and put them on himself, all bloody as they were.  Then, strapping the other’s sword and dagger around his body and carrying his own in his hand, together with the two bows of yew, he drew the cowl of horse’s hide over his face, so that none could tell who he was, and set forth from the forest, turning his steps toward the eastward and Nottingham Town.  As he strode along the country roads, men, women, and children hid away from him, for the terror of Guy of Gisbourne’s name and of his doings had spread far and near.

And now let us see what befell Little John while these things were happening.

Little John walked on his way through the forest paths until he had come to the outskirts of the woodlands, where, here and there, fields of barley, corn, or green meadow lands lay smiling in the sun.  So he came to the highroad and to where a little thatched cottage stood back of a cluster of twisted crab trees, with flowers in front of it.  Here he stopped of a sudden, for he thought that he heard the sound of someone in sorrow.  He listened, and found that it came from the cottage; so, turning his footsteps thither, he pushed open the wicket and entered the place.  There he saw a gray-haired dame sitting beside a cold hearthstone, rocking herself to and fro and weeping bitterly.

Now Little John had a tender heart for the sorrows of other folk, so, coming to the old woman and patting her kindly upon the shoulder, he spoke comforting words to her, bidding her cheer up and tell him her troubles, for that mayhap he might do something to ease them.  At all this the good dame shook her head; but all the same his kind words did soothe her somewhat, so after a while she told him all that bore upon her mind.  That that morning she had three