him like a moulting sparrow with one feather in its tail. For a month afterwards 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 scouring away in the distance, hidden within a cloud of dust like a little thunder-storm.

The widow’s three sons join Robin Hood’s band.

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.

Thus end the bravest adventures that ever befell Robin Hood and Little John. So next we shall hear how stout King Richard of the Lion’s Heart visited Robin in Sherwood Forest.

II.

King Richard cometh to Sherwood Forest.

Not more than two months had passed and gone since these stirring adventures that have just been told of befell Robin Hood and Little John, when all Nottinghamshire was in a mighty stir and tumult, for King Richard of the Lion’s Heart was making a royal progress through merry England, and every one 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.

King Richard of the Lion’s Heart maketh a royal progress through merry England.

The folk of Notrtingham Towm make ready for the King’s coming.

And now came more bustle than ever; a great runing hither and thither, a rapping of hammers and a babble of voices sounded ev erywhere 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.

“Take care whom thou pushest against!” cried a great, burly friar to one of these men. “Wouldst thou dig thine elbows into me, sirrah? By ’r Lady of the Fountain, an thou dost not treat me with more deference I will crack thy knave’s pate for thee, even though thou be one of the mighty Sheriffs men.”

A certain fat friar berates one of the Sheriff’s men for pushing him.

At this a great shout of laughter arose from a number of tall yeomen in Lincoln green that were scattered through the crowd thereabouts; but one that seemed of more authority than the others nudged the holy man with his elbow. “Peace, Tuck,” said he; “didst thou not promise me, ere thou camest here, that thou wouldst put a check upon thy tongue?”

“Ay, marry,” grumbled the other, “but I did not think to have a hard-footed knave trample all over my poor toes as though they were no more than so many acorns in the forest.”

But of a sudden all this bickering ceased, for a clear sound of many bugle horns came winding down the street. Then all the people craned their necks and gazed in the direction whence the sound came, and the crowding and the pushing and the swaying grew