The Chronicles of Robin Hood (7 page)

Robin nodded; then he demanded quickly: ‘What sum did the abbot advance you on your land?’

‘Four hundred pounds—though indeed the land was worth three times as much.’

‘And what will you do if you cannot redeem your land?’

The knight sighed, rather drearily. ‘I shall take my wife back to her own kinsfolk; they will support her, and I cannot. I shall leave England and go back to the Holy Land, and walk once more upon the hill of Calvary. I shall never return to my native country, for I could not bear to see a stranger holding the land of my inheritance.’

‘Have you no friends who could help you?’ asked Robin.

‘I thought I had friends in plenty—when I had no need of them,’ said the knight bitterly. ‘Now that this trouble has come upon me they do not know me.’

‘You have no friend at all? None who would act as surety for a loan?’

‘None, save God.’

‘Nay,’ said Robin, who thought this savoured too much of the Church. ‘I would not take even the holy saints as sureties for my good red gold!’

‘And I would not blame you. Yet I have no earthly sureties to offer, and in Heaven there is only Our Lady, who never deserted me until now.’

When Robin heard this he laughed suddenly and leapt to his feet. ‘That is a different matter,’ he cried. ‘I would take Our Lady’s bond for any sum. You could have no better surety.’ And turning to Little John, he bade him bring four hundred pounds from the treasury.

Little John, and Much, who was the treasurer of the band, went together to the secret place where the gold was kept and counted out the amount, taking care not to include any false or clipped coin. Then, acting on a kindly suggestion from Much, they took a rich surcoat and a gold-embroidered baldric from the store, and returned to where Robin and the knight were waiting.

The knight had been standing very still, staring away down the glade; but when he saw the gold and the surcoat, he turned to Robin, flinging out his hands to him, and his hands were shaking. ‘Why have you done this for me—a stranger?’ he asked.

‘You are no stranger,’ replied Robin. ‘You are Our Lady’s messenger.’

The knight drew a deep breath. ‘I shall not betray your trust,’ said he slowly. ‘When shall I repay you, and where? Name a day, and I will keep it.’

‘Come to me here beneath my trysting tree this day next year. That will give you time to gather the rents from your redeemed lands,’ Robin told him, and added with a smile: ‘It is not fitting for a knight to travel alone, so I will lend you a little page of my own to go with you.’ And he beckoned to Little John, who came forward amid a shout of laughter from his comrades.

Another horse was brought for the huge outlaw, both men swung into the saddle, and the knight, after bending down to wring Robin’s hand and thank him for his kindness, was already riding away when he checked his horse and looked back.

‘I have borrowed four hundred pounds from you and forgotten even to tell you my name. I am Sir Richard-at-Lea.’

‘You are Our Lady’s messenger, and that is enough for me,’ called back Robin. And so, with many shouted farewells ringing behind them, Little John and Sir Richard rode away.

Next morning the Lord Abbot of St. Mary’s Abbey sat before the high table in his Great Hall, with his guests and his senior brethren around him. There was roast beef before him, boiled ham and greasy pie, and all manner of rich wines; and he ate loudly and greedily, with an appetite that was even larger than usual, for he was in a high good humour. Presently he wiped greasy lips and spoke to the prior—a lean, pale-faced man who sat among the brethren farther down the table.

‘Twelve months ago we lent four hundred pounds to a needy knight, Brother Julian, and if he does not come to repay it by noon to-day he loses all his possessions, and we shall be the richer by a fat estate! Our Lady grant he is not able to keep his tryst!’

‘The good knight may be ill, or overseas,’ said the prior, indignantly, ‘and it would be a foul wrong to declare his lands forfeit!’

‘No, no!’ replied the abbot, and he laughed fatly. ‘This was the day agreed upon, and he does not come; therefore his lands are ours.’

But Brother Julian cried out: ‘You dare not take his lands until noon, for that also was agreed upon. Shame on you, to ruin a good knight who never harmed you. If I had the money I would pay it—gladly—on his behalf.’

Then the abbot flew into a passion and drummed with his fists on the table, while his brow grew black. ‘The devil fly away with you and your conscience!’ he shouted. ‘You are for ever crossing me. But I have the Lord Chief Justice here to declare my legal right.’ And he pointed to a stately, bleak-faced individual sitting among the guests at his table.

At that moment the tapestry hangings over the doorway were pulled aside and in came the cellarer, an elderly man, bloated of body, and red of nose from overmuch tasting of the sack and malmsey wine in his charge, who shambled, grinning, to his place at table, full of mealy-mouthed congratulations for the abbot. ‘For,’ said he, ‘the knight is surely sick or dead, and
we
shall have the spending of four hundred pounds a year!’

Hardly were the words out of his mouth than the rich hangings were once again drawn aside and in the opening appeared a scared-looking porter, who announced: ‘My Lord Abbot, Sir Richard-at-Lea is here, and craves a word with you.’ And he disappeared again before the wrath and disappointment of the prelate could vent itself on his head.

Sir Richard came humbly into the hall and made his salutation to the abbot and his guests—some of whom had once been his friends. The abbot greeted him coldly, and many of the guests did not return his salutation at all. Sir Richard looked round at them bitterly, and he thought
to himself that he would test them, to see if there was even one among them who would remember that he had been his friend in the days of his prosperity.

‘My Lord Abbot,’ he said, ‘I have come to keep my appointment.’

The abbot nodded insolently. ‘Have you brought the money to pay your debt?’

‘No, I have not brought it.’

‘Pledge me in malmsey, Sir Justice!’ cried the abbot with a brutal laugh. ‘For the land is mine!’ Then, turning back to the knight: ‘Why have you come if you have not the gold with you?’

‘To beg you, of your mercy, to grant me a little longer time in which to repay my debt.’

‘Not a day! Not an hour!’ replied the abbot, gloatingly. ‘You have broken your pledge and your land is forfeit!’

Then Sir Richard dropped on one knee and turned to the justice with pleading hands outflung. ‘Speak for me, Lord Justice.’

‘Nay,’ said the justice smoothly. ‘I hold to the law. I can give you no help.’

Sir Richard turned back to the abbot. ‘Gentle abbot, for the sake of Him who never refused mercy, give me my lands again, and I will be your humble servant until the debt is paid.’

The abbot refused, shortly. He was growing tired of this pestilent knight who was interfering with his meal. No one spoke for the man who knelt so humbly before them; those of them who had been his friends avoided his eye. ‘Unless I have my lands again you shall bitterly regret it,’ said Sir Richard, very quietly.

Then the abbot’s brow darkened once more with rage,
his puffy face grew crimson, and he shouted thickly at Sir Richard: ‘Get out of my hall, you false knight!’

There was a moment’s silence; then Sir Richard rose to his feet and stood facing his persecutors with flashing eyes. ‘Liar!’ he cried. ‘I was never a false knight, and well you know it. I have been true to the vows of my knighthood. How have
you
kept the vows that you swore on the day you were made a monk? Answer me that, you bloated, grasping fiend!’

No one—save, perhaps, Robin Hood—had ever spoken to the abbot thus. He turned from red to purple, the veins swelled in his neck, and for a moment he seemed about to choke. Then he let out a bellow of rage and half rose in his carved chair, shouting insults at the knight, who watched him with a look of quiet contempt.

The startled guests and clergy sat as though turned to stone, staring aghast at raging abbot and scornful knight. The first to recover himself was the Lord Chief Justice, and as the abbot paused in his tirade for lack of breath, he turned to him and demanded: ‘What will you give me if I persuade this man to sign the deed of release? For without it you will never hold the land in peace.’

The abbot took a deep breath, swallowed thickly, and replied: ‘A hundred pounds for yourself.’

By now it was nearly noon, and Sir Richard thought it was time to drop the game, for he had no mind to risk his lands again. ‘Not so fast,’ said he, and turning towards the curtained doorway he called: ‘Little John!’

The tapestry was pulled aside, and into the hall strode Little John, bearing a leather bag, which he carried across to the table.

‘Give the Lord Abbot his money, Little John,’ said the knight; and the outlaw untied the neck of the bag and poured out the golden coins among the trenchers and wine-flasks.

The abbot stared at the gold with goggling eyes and open mouth,
too astonished to move or speak, and the others about the table were in no better case. The ancient cellarer was the first to move, and putting out a greedy hand he began to count the coins.

‘Yes, count them well,’ said Sir Richard, with a hard laugh. ‘You will not find one missing.’ And when the counting was over, he turned back to the abbot: ‘Take your money, Lord Abbot, and give me my quittance. Not to-day do my lands pass into the keeping of St. Mary’s Abbey!’

The quittance was brought, also a quill and ink-horn, and the abbot signed it with a shaking hand. Sir Richard took it from him with a stately bow and, folding it, thrust it into his wallet. ‘I call all those here to witness that I have kept my day and paid my debt in full,’ he said, looking round the table. Then he turned on his heel and, followed by Little John, stalked out of the hall.

At the gates of York they parted and Sir Richard rode blithely homeward, while Little John made his way back to the Stane Ley to tell the joyous tale to Robin Hood.

A year passed, all save a few days, and in his castle at Linden Lea Sir Richard bethought him that the time was almost come to repay his debt. He spoke of it to his wife one evening as they strolled among the sweet-briar and sops-in-wine in her garden.

‘I must set out for Barnesdale in a few days to repay my good friend Robin Hood his loan; and it is in my
mind that I would like to take him a gift beside. You are wiser in such things than I, dear wife. What do you advise?’

The lady thought for a little while and then she said: ‘If it were me, I would take him a hundred bows of red Spanish yew and a hundred sheaves of arrows flighted with peacock feathers.’

So Sir Richard gathered together the bows and the sheaves of arrows, and with two men to see to the train of pack-horses, he set out.

Riding at the head of his little troop he came, early the following morning, into a large village; and here, on the village green, the whole population had gathered to watch a midsummer wrestling bout.

A white charger was tethered under a tall mulberry tree at one side of the green. A pipe of wine stood close beside it, with a pair of embroidered gloves laid across the top, and hanging from a forked hazel twig Sir Richard caught the glitter of a gold ring.

‘It must be about between two famous champions,’ he thought, ‘judging by the richness of the prize,’ and because he had ever loved the sport of wrestling, he reined in his horse on the outskirts of the crowd, to watch. The two seemed well matched, and Sir Richard’s face was alight with interest as he followed every movement of the wrestlers as they sought for the holds they wanted; but one of the men was tiring, his holds were less sure, and suddenly there was a shout from the people, and the victor staggered to his feet.

Sir Richard looked about him, and was surprised to see black looks and clenched fists that contrasted ill with the gay holiday garments of the people. Turning to a tall
fellow beside him, he asked the meaning of this, and was told that the champion was a stranger and had therefore no right to win the prize.

‘That seems hardly fair,’ said Sir Richard, gently. ‘He has won the prize by vanquishing his opponent fairly, and it is his, be he never so many times a stranger.’ And he urged his horse forward through the crowd into the open turf of the prize-ring to the side of the stranger-champion, who stood staring about him in bewilderment.

The mob shouted angrily, and pressed forward around the knight and the wrestler; but the two men in charge of the pack-horses thrust their way through to their master’s side, and at the sight of their resolute faces the hot resentment of the village people began to cool away. In a little while the whole crowd was quiet.

Then Sir Richard turned to the wrestler, saying kindly: ‘Take your prize, lad.’

The man looked up at him for a moment, then his young, troubled face broadened into a grin, and pulling his forelock with a ‘Thank ’ee, sir,’ he turned to take the bridle of the white horse. As he did so, the knight took a gold piece from his wallet, and called after him: ‘Ho, lad! Will you sell me your pipe of wine?’

The wrestler looked back, laughing. ‘Willingly, Master—I would sooner have its worth in money than a clumsy pipe of wine to carry along with me.’

So the gold piece and the pipe of wine changed hands, and no sooner was it done than Sir Richard called to the gaping crowd: ‘See, good folks, here is a pipe of wine; broach it, and make merry, with my blessing.’ And he touched his heel against his horse’s flank, urging it forward.

The people parted to let him and his men through. Their dark looks were lightened, some of them called out a rough ‘thank-you’ after him, and a red-nosed old fellow, who looked as though he had broached many pipes in his time, struck up a song and began to jig up and down in the dusty highway. As he rode away, Sir Richard knew that the village was in a holiday mood.

He was now very late for his tryst, but he thought Robin would forgive him when he heard the cause of the delay, and so he rode on, blithely enough.

Meanwhile, Robin was waiting patiently enough in the Stane Ley. But noon came and went, and presently he began to look worried and to watch the far end of the glade, with a small frown between his eyes.