Not long after this, a score or more of the King's men came clattering
up to the door of the inn at Barnet Town. Here they leaped from their
horses and quickly surrounded the place, the leader of the band and four
others entering the room where the yeomen had been. But they found that
their birds had flown again, and that the King had been balked a second
time.
"Methought that they were naughty fellows," said the host, when he heard
whom the men-at-arms sought. "But I heard that blue-clad knave say that
they would go straight forward to Saint Albans; so, an ye hurry forward,
ye may, perchance, catch them on the highroad betwixt here and there."
For this news the leader of the band thanked mine host right heartily,
and, calling his men together, mounted and set forth again, galloping
forward to Saint Albans upon a wild goose chase.
After Little John and Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale had left the highway
near garnet, they traveled toward the eastward, without stopping, as
long as their legs could carry them, until they came to Chelmsford,
in Essex. Thence they turned northward, and came through Cambridge and
Lincolnshire, to the good town of Gainsborough. Then, striking to the
westward and the south, they came at last to the northern borders of
Sherwood Forest, without in all that time having met so much as a single
band of the King's men. Eight days they journeyed thus ere they reached
the woodlands in safety, but when they got to the greenwood glade, they
found that Robin had not yet returned.
Pages:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314