Now when the Sheriff of Nottingham saw whose face it was beneath Guy of Gisbourne’s hood, and when he heard those bugle notes ring in his ear, he felt as if his hour had come.  “Robin Hood!” roared he, and without another word he wheeled his horse in the road and went off in a cloud of dust.  The Sheriff’s men, seeing their master thus fleeing for his life, thought that it was not their business to tarry longer, so, clapping spurs to their horses, they also dashed away after him.  But though the Sheriff of Nottingham went fast, he could not outstrip a clothyard arrow.  Little John twanged his bowstring with a shout, and when the Sheriff dashed in through the gates of Nottingham Town at full speed, a gray goose shaft stuck out behind him like a moulting sparrow with one feather in its tail.  For a month afterward the poor Sheriff could sit upon nought but the softest cushions that could be gotten for him.

Thus the Sheriff and a score of men ran away from Robin Hood and Little John; so that when Will Stutely and a dozen or more of stout yeomen burst from out the covert, they saw nought of their master’s enemies, for the Sheriff and his men were scurrying away in the distance, hidden within a cloud of dust like a little thunderstorm.

Then they all went back into the forest once more, where they found the widow’s three sons, who ran to Little John and kissed his hands.  But it would not do for them to roam the forest at large any more; so they promised that, after they had gone and told their mother of their escape, they would come that night to the greenwood tree, and thenceforth become men of the band.

King Richard Comes to Sherwood Forest

NOT MORE than two months had passed and gone since these stirring adventures befell Robin Hood and Little John, when all Nottinghamshire was a mighty stir and tumult, for King Richard of the Lion’s Heart was making a royal progress through merry England, and everyone expected him to come to Nottingham Town in his journeying.  Messengers went riding back and forth between the Sheriff and the King, until at last the time was fixed upon when His Majesty was to stop in Nottingham, as the guest of his worship.

And now came more bustle than ever; a great running hither and thither, a rapping of hammers and a babble of voices sounded everywhere through the place, for the folk were building great arches across the streets, beneath which the King was to pass, and were draping these arches with silken banners and streamers of many colors.  Great hubbub was going on in the Guild Hall of the town, also, for here a grand banquet was to be given to the King and the nobles of his train, and the best master carpenters were busy building a throne where the King and the Sheriff were to sit at the head of the table, side by side.

It seemed to many of the good folk of the place as if the day that should bring the King into the town would never come; but all the same it did come in its own season, and bright shone the sun down into the stony streets, which were all alive with a restless sea of people.  On either side of the way great crowds of town and country folk stood packed as close together as dried herring in a box, so that the Sheriffs men, halberds in hands, could hardly press them back to leave space for the King’s riding.