itude was worthy of his longitude, and his
strength was worthy of both; and though an honest man by profession, he
had practiced archery on the king's deer for the benefit of his master's
household, and for the improvement of his own eye and hand, till his
aim had become infallible within the range of two miles. He had fought
manfully in defence of his young master, took his captivity exceedingly
to heart, and fell into bitter grief and boundless rage when he heard
that he had been tried in Nottingham and sentenced to die. Alice
Gamwell, at Little John's request, wrote three letters of one tenour;
and Little John, having attached them to three blunt arrows, saddled the
fleetest steed in old Sir Guy of Gamwell's stables, mounted, and rode
first to Arlingford Castle, where he shot one of the three arrows over
the battlements; then to Rubygill Abbey, where he shot the second into
the abbey-garden; then back past Gamwell-Hall to the borders of Sherwood
Forest, where he shot the third into the wood. Now the first of these
arrows lighted in the nape of the neck of Lord Fitzwater, and lodged
itself firmly between his skin and his collar; the second rebounded with
the hollow vibration of a drumstick from the shaven sconce of the abbot
of Rubygill; and the third pitched perpendicularly into the centre of a
venison pasty in which Robin Hood was making incision.

Matilda ran up to her father in the court of Arlingford Castle, seized
the arrow, drew off the letter, and concealed it in her bosom before the
baron had time to look round, which he did with many expressions of rage
against the impudent villain who had shot a blunt arrow into the nape of
his neck.

"But you know, father," said Matilda, "a sharp arrow in the same place
would have killed you; therefore the sending a blunt one was very
considerate."

"Considerate, with a vengeance!" said the baron. "Where was the
consideration of sending it at all? This is some of your forester's
pranks. He has missed you in the forest, since I have kept watch and
ward over you, and by way of a love-token and a remembrance to you takes
a random shot at me."

The abbot of Rubygill picked up the missile-missive or messenger
arrow, which had rebounded from his shaven crown, with a very unghostly
malediction on the sender, which he suddenly checked with a pious and
consolatory reflection on the goodness of Providence in having blessed
him with such a thickness of skull, to which he was now