The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
but something had sped from that body, even as the winged arrow sped
from the bow.
For some minutes Little John sat motionless, but presently he laid that
which he held gently down, then, folding the hands upon the breast and
covering up the face, he turned upon his heel and left the room without
a word or a sound.
Upon the steep stairway he met the Prioress and some of the chief among
the sisters. To them he spoke in a deep, quivering voice, and said he,
"An ye go within a score of feet of yonder room, I will tear down your
rookery over your heads so that not one stone shall be left upon
another. Bear my words well in mind, for I mean them." So saying, he
turned and left them, and they presently saw him running rapidly across
the open, through the falling of the dusk, until he was swallowed up by
the forest.
The early gray of the coming morn was just beginning to lighten the
black sky toward the eastward when Little John and six more of the band
came rapidly across the open toward the nunnery. They saw no one, for
the sisters were all hidden away from sight, having been frightened by
Little John's words. Up the stone stair they ran, and a great sound of
weeping was presently heard. After a while this ceased, and then came
the scuffling and shuffling of men's feet as they carried a heavy weight
down the steep and winding stairs. So they went forth from the nunnery,
and, as they passed through the doors thereof, a great, loud sound of
wailing arose from the glade that lay all dark in the dawning, as though
many men, hidden in the shadows, had lifted up their voices in sorrow.
Thus died Robin Hood, at Kirklees Nunnery, in fair Yorkshire, with mercy
in his heart toward those that had been his undoing; for thus he showed
mercy for the erring and pity for the weak through all the time of his
living.
His yeomen were scattered henceforth, but no great ill befell them
thereafter, for a more merciful sheriff and one who knew them not so
well succeeding the one that had gone, and they being separated here and
there throughout the countryside, they abided in peace and quietness, so
that many lived to hand down these tales to their children and their
children's children.
A certain one sayeth that upon a stone at Kirklees is an old
inscription. This I give in the ancient English in which it was written,
and thus it runs:
HEAR UNDERNEAD DIS LAITL STEAN LAIS ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGTUN NEA ARCIR
VER AS HIE SAE GEUD AN PIPL KAULD IM ROBIN HEUD SICK UTLAWS AS HI AN IS
MEN VIL ENGLAND NIDIR SI AGEN OBIIT 24 KAL. DEKEMBRIS 1247.
And now, dear friend, we also must part, for our merry journeyings have
ended, and here, at the grave of Robin Hood, we turn, each going his own
way.