Section V. Story: How Robin Hood Met Little John

Description

This section is from the book "Lessons In English", by Chestine Gowdy, Lora M. Dexheimer. Also available from Amazon: Lessons in English.

Section V. Story: How Robin Hood Met Little John

1. Preparation

All peoples, like the Old Greeks, have loved to repeat stories of the daring adventures of the early heroes of their race. After they had been handed down for hundreds of years by the story-tellers of the race, these tales were finally put into writing.

Then at last they were printed, and many of them have thus come down to us.

You have read of the Greek heroes, Perseus, Theseus, and Jason. How many of you know something about Robin Hood, the best-loved of English heroes?

This famous outlaw, because of what would seem to us a slight misdeed, was forced to flee to Sherwood Forest in order to save himself from the gallows. Here he gathered about him a band of jolly good fellows, and they spent the time in merry games and bold adventures.

Robin Hood loved his king and was loyal to the church; but he hated the king's sheriff, the lords of the land, and the high officers of the church, because they made themselves rich by oppressing the poor. He and his merry men were happy indeed when they could make life miserable to some greedy enemy, or when they could do some deed of kindness to the poor or the afflicted.

You are to read in this lesson how Robin Hood first met Little John, who was to become one of the most famous of his companions.

You will surely wish to find other stories about the gay life these merry men lived in the greenwood.

2. Reading Lesson

Robin Hood And Little John 1

"Master," said William Scarlet, "here's a rare bit of venison. Will you have it?"

"No, thank you, man," answered Robin.

"Here's a comb of honey as yellow as the gold in the lord's purse. Will you have it?"

"I can eat no honey," said Robin.

"Here are strawberries, and they were gathered with the dew of the morning on them. Will you take them?"

"I will have no strawberries."

"Here's white bread, and only yesterday it was baked in the bishop's oven. Will you taste it?" Robin shook his head. Then said William Scarlet:

"Did you have bad dreams, Master?"

"Bad dreams hide under roofs; they never come under the open sky."

"Then you are sick," declared William Scarlet, "and you must be bled."

So William Scarlet and Much, the miller's son, and Arthur a Bland laid Robin gently down on the soft green moss. They bled him and they bled him.

"Do you feel any better, Master?" asked Arthur.

"No whit better do I feel," groaned Robin.

"It's the witches that have hold of him," said Arthur, and the tears began to drop from his eyes like rain. "When the witches get into a man, you have to beat them out with oaken sticks, or else he'll go mad."

They both cut stout oaken sticks to beat the witches out of Robin, and so well did they succeed that at the first blow he opened his eyes and said, "I feel better." At the second he sat up and said, "I'm gaining fast," and at the third he stood up on his feet and said, "I feel well."

1 Copyright, 1903, by Little, Brown, and Co.

Then all the merrymen jumped for joy, and William Scarlet asked anxiously:

"But, Master, was it the witches, think you?"

"There's no telling," answered Robin. "Mayhap it's the wearisome life I've led. It's fourteen long days since I've had a bit of sport. A man that's been sick needs a change, and I'll take a little journey for the good of my health. I'll go through the forest and see what I can see."

So Robin caught up his bow and arrows and bade farewell to his merrymen all. Through the forest he went, but never a bit of sport did he find. He walked along the path slowly and gloomily. His hunting cloak trailed in the dust, and his head hung down. He came to a wide brook, and over the brook lay a long plank. Robin put one foot on the plank just as some one else put one foot on the other end. The sun was in Robin's eyes, so he could not see who it was, but the shadow of the stranger was so long that it stretched away across the water, and in a minute a loud voice called:

"Stand back and clear the bridge."

"Stand back yourself," shouted Robin; but his voice trembled just a wee bit, for he was not really sure that it was a man; he thought it might be the witches again.

"I'll stand back after I've crossed the bridge," said the voice. "Make way for your betters."

"I'll make way for my betters when I find them," cried Robin. Just then the sun sank below the hill, and Robin saw at the other end of the bridge a man full seven feet tall, with fists like sledge hammers and a staff like the mast of a vessel.

"It's only a man," said Robin to himself, and he took another step forward and cried boldly:

"Get you gone from the narrow bridge, or I'll show you the way we do it in Bernisdale"; and Robin drew from his quiver a broad arrow winged with a gray goose-quill.

"If you touch the string," cried the stranger, "over into the water you'll go."

"I thought you might be witchcraft, but you're only a simpleton," said Robin, "for I could send my good arrow clear and clear through you before you could strike a blow."

"If I'm a simpleton, you're a coward, that's what you are," retorted the giant. "You have a bow, and I've nothing but a staff."

"If that's a staff, I wonder what a tree-trunk would be," thought Robin, but he called aloud:

"Don't you move hand or foot, and I'll go to the thicket and cut me a stick, and we'll see who's the better man."

Soon Robin came back, and then such a flourishing of staffs as there was just in the middle of the narrow bridge ! The stranger struck the first blow, and the dust flew out of Robin's hunting-cloak till you couldn't have seen the sun if it had been above the hill. Then Robin struck so hard that the bones of the stranger rang, until all the little birds drew their heads out from under their wings and began to sing.

Then they struck at each other's head and they were both so hot-headed that you could see fire at every stroke. At last the giant pushed Robin into the brook.

"Where are you now, my fine fellow?" he cried.

"I'm sailing happily down the flood And floating along with the tide/' trolled Robin. "You're a brave man, and you've won the fight. Now I'll give you the merriest time that you ever had in all your life."

Robin pulled himself out by a thorn tree and shook the water from his buglehorn. Then he blew such a blast that the leaves on the trees began to fall because they thought a November gale was blowing.

In the wink of an eye there was a great rustling in the woods, and from east and west and north and south came Robin's good bowmen all dressed in Lincoln green. There were nine and sixty of them, and they all rushed up to Robin.

"Where have you been?" they cried, "and how came you so wet?"

"It's the laddie that's just crossed the plank," answered Robin. "He tumbled me into the stream."

"Then into the stream he goes himself," said Will Stutely.

"Nay, nay, hold!" cried Robin. "The man that I love best is the one that's gotten the better of me in a fair fight. I'll have no man to serve me that cannot beat me." Then said he to the stranger:

"Will you be one of my bowmen and wear my livery, and learn to use the bow, and eat venison like a king's son, and have two new suits every year, and live in the good greenwood as free as the bird on the bough?"

"That will I, in faith, and right heartily, and here's my hand on it," said the stranger, and he squeezed Robin's hand till you could hear the bones squeak.

"What is your name?" asked Robin.

"John Little," replied the stranger. At this the whole nine and sixty bowmen burst out a-laughing.

"You shouldn't laugh at a bashful stranger lad like me," said John Little; "but I don't bear malice, and I'll shake hands with every one of you to prove it."

"He'll shake hands with us," murmured the nine and sixty; and each one of them put his right hand behind him.

Then William Scarlet stepped forward and said:

"When a babe like this wee bit laddie comes, he must be christened. Who will give him a name?" "I will," said Arthur a Bland. "We'll call him Little John."

"What do they do at a christening?" asked William Stutely.

"They give the baby a gown," answered Much, the miller's son.

"I'll give him the gown," declared Robin, "and it shall be of the Lincoln green, and I'll give him a bow, and a quiver full of arrows all winged with a gray goose-quill."

"Don't they do anything else at a christening?" asked William Stutely.

"Yes," Answered Robin. "They have a feast."

"A feast, a feast," murmured the nine and sixty good bowmen; and they all set to and made ready for the christening feast. They had silver dishes from the sheriff's house, and golden dishes from the bishop's house, and venison from the king's forest, and they had honey and white bread, and fish and fowl, roast and baked and broiled, and they ate and they drank, and they danced and they sang, till the moon was high up over the tree tops.

And so it was that John Little was christened Little John and became one of Robin Hood's men and went to live in the good greenwood.

- Eva March Tappan.

3. Word Study

Find these words in the story and write down other words to explain them. You may need to look up a few in a dictionary.

rare mad quiver Lincoln green venison wearisome simpleton bear malice.

bled sport coward christened.

Find at least two words in the list that are sometimes used with different meanings from those they have here.

Why do you suppose these men wore Lincoln green?

4. Oral Reading. Dramatization.

When you read the story in class, let different pupils read what is said by the different persons. Perhaps you will like to learn the parts sometime and make a little play of the story.

5. Word Study

Read the explanations that come between the talk, and make a list of the different words the author has used where he might have used said. There are at least ten. See if you can think of two reasons for using these different words instead of repeating said.