Robin Hood by J. Walker McSpadden (best book series to read txt) 📗

and softly! Big words never killed so much as a mouse—least of all yon deer which has got away while you were filling all the woods with your noisy breath. So choose your own playthings. For your sword and your bow I care not a straw; nor for all your arrows to boot. If I get but a knock at you, ‘twill be as much as you’ll need.”

“Now by our Lady! Will you listen to the braggart?” cried Robin in a fine rage. “Marry, but I’ll teach ye to be more mannerly!”

So saying he unbuckled his belt; and, flinging his bow upon the ground he seized hold of a young sapling that was growing near by. His hunting knife soon had it severed and lopped into shape.

“Now come, fellow!” said Arthur-a-Bland, seeing that he was ready. “And if I do not tan your hide for you in better shape than ever calf-skin was turned into top-boots, may a murrain seize me!”

“Stay,” said Robin, “methinks my cudgel is half a foot longer than yours. I would have them of even length before you begin your tanning.”

“I pass not for length,” bold Arthur replied; “my staff is long enough, as you will shortly find out. Eight foot and a half, and ‘twill knock down a calf”—here he made it whistle in the air—“and I hope it will knock down you.”

Forthwith the two men spat on their hands, laid firm hold upon their cudgels and began slowly circling round each other, looking for an opening.

Now it so chanced that Little John had fared expeditiously with his errand. He had met the merchant, from whom he was wont to buy Lincoln green, coming along the road; and had made known his wants in few words. The merchant readily undertook to deliver the suits by a certain day in the following month. So Little John, glad to get back to the cool shelter of the greenwood, hasted along the road lately taken by Robin.

Presently he heard the sound of angry voices, one of which he recognized as his captain’s.

“Now, Heaven forfend,” quoth he, “that Robin Hood has fallen into the clutches of a King’s man! I must take a peep at this fray.”

So he cautiously made his way from tree to tree, as Robin had done, till he came to the little open space where Robin and Arthur were circling about each other with angry looks, like two dogs at bay.

“Ha! this looks interesting!” muttered Little John to himself, for he loved a good quarter-staff bout above anything else in the world, and was the best man at it in all the greenwood. And he crawled quietly underneath a friendly bush—much as he had done when Robin undertook to teach Will Scarlet a lesson—and chuckled softly to himself and slapped his thigh and prepared to watch the fight at his ease.

Indeed it was both exciting and laughable. You would have chuckled one moment and caught your breath the next, to see those two stout fellows swinging their sticks—each half as long again as the men were, and thick as their arm—and edging along sidewise, neither wishing to strike the first blow.

At last Robin could no longer forbear, and his good right arm swung round like a flash. Ping! went the stick on the back of the other’s head, raising such a welt that the blood came. But the tanner did not seem to mind it at all, for bing! went his own staff in return, giving Robin as good as he had sent. Then the battle was on, and furiously it waged. Fast fell the blows, but few save the first ones landed, being met in mid-air by a counter-blow till the thwacking sticks sounded like the steady roll of a kettle-drum and the oak—bark flew as fine as it had ever done in Arthur-a-Bland’s tannery.

Round and round they fought, digging their heels into the ground to keep from slipping, so that you would have vowed there had been a yoke of oxen ploughing a potato-patch. Round and round, up and down, in and out, their arms working like threshing-machines, went the yeoman and the tanner, for a full hour, each becoming more astonished every minute that the other was such a good fellow. While Little John from underneath his bushy covert had much ado to keep from roaring aloud in pure joy.

Finally Robin saw his chance and brought a full arm blow straight down upon the other’s head with a force that would have felled a bullock. But Arthur’s trebled cow-skin cap here stood him in good stead: the blow glanced off without doing more than stunning him. Nathless, he reeled and had much ado to keep from falling; seeing which Robin stayed his hand—to his own sorrow, for the tanner recovered his wits in a marvelous quick space and sent back a sidelong blow which fairly lifted Robin off his feet and sent him tumbling on to the grass.

“Hold your hand! hold your hand!” roared Robin with what little breath he had left. “Hold, I say, and I will give you the freedom of the greenwood.”

“Why, God-a-mercy,” said Arthur; “I may thank my staff for that—not you.”

“Well, well, gossip’ let be as it may. But prithee tell me your name and trade. I like to know fellows who can hit a blow like that same last.”

“I am a tanner,” replied Arthur-a-Bland. “In Nottingham long have I wrought. And if you’ll come to me I swear I’ll tan your hides for naught.”

“Odds bodikins!” quoth Robin ruefully. “Mine own hide is tanned enough for the present. Howsoever, there be others in this wood I would fain see you tackle. Harkee, if you will leave your tan-pots and come with me, as sure as my name is Robin Hood, you shan’t want gold or fee.”

“By the breath o’ my body!” said Arthur, “that will I do!” and he gripped him gladly by the hand. “But I am minded that I clean forgot the errand that brought me to Sherwood. I was commissioned by some, under the Sheriff’s roof, to capture you.”

“So was a certain tinker, now in our service,” said Robin smilingly.

“Verily ‘tis a new way to recruit forces!” said the tanner laughing loudly. “But tell me, good Robin Hood, where is Little John? I fain would see him, for he is a kinsman on my mother’s side.”

“Here am I, good Arthur-a-Bland!” said a voice; and Little John literally rolled out from under the bush to the sward. His eyes were full of tears from much laughter which had well-nigh left him powerless to get on his feet.

As soon as the astonished tanner saw who it was, he gave Little John a mighty hug around the neck, and lifted him up on his feet, and the two pounded each other on the back soundly, so glad were they to meet again.

“O, man, man!” said Little John as soon as he had got his breath. “Never saw I so fine a sight in all my born days. You did knock him over like as he were a ninepin!”

“And you do joy to see me thwacked about on the ribs?” asked Robin with some choler.

“Nay, not that, master!” said Little John. “But ‘tis the second time I have had special tickets to