joys and pleasures
that are dead and gone can never be set upon their feet to walk again. I
will not dwell upon the matter overlong, but will tell as speedily as
may be of how that stout fellow, Robin Hood, died as he had lived, not
at court as Earl of Huntingdon, but with bow in hand, his heart in the
greenwood, and he himself a right yeoman.

King Richard died upon the battlefield, in such a way as properly became
a lion-hearted king, as you yourself, no doubt, know; so, after a time,
the Earl of Huntingdon--or Robin Hood, as we still call him as of old--
finding nothing for his doing abroad, came back to merry England again.
With him came Allan a Dale and his wife, the fair Ellen, for these two
had been chief of Robin's household ever since he had left Sherwood
Forest.

It was in the springtime when they landed once more on the shores of
England. The leaves were green and the small birds sang blithely, just
as they used to do in fair Sherwood when Robin Hood roamed the woodland
shades with a free heart and a light heel. All the sweetness of the time
and the joyousness of everything brought back to Robin's mind his forest
life, so that a great longing came upon him to behold the woodlands once
more. So he went straightway to King John and besought leave of him to
visit Nottingham for a short season. The King gave him leave to come
and to go, but bade him not stay longer than three days at Sherwood. So
Robin Hood and Allan a Dale set forth without delay to Nottinghamshire
and Sherwood Forest.

The first night they took up their inn at Nottingham Town, yet they did
not go to pay their duty to the Sheriff, for his worship bore many a
bitter grudge against Robin Hood, which grudges had not been lessened by
Robin's rise in the world. The next day at an early hour they mounted
their horses and set forth for the woodlands. As they passed along the
road it seemed to Robin that he knew every stick and stone that his eyes
looked upon. Yonder was a path that he had ofttimes trod of a mellow
evening, with Little John beside him; here was one, now nigh choked with
brambles, along which he and a little band had walked when they went
forth to seek a certain curtal friar.

Thus they rode slowly onward, talking about these old, familiar things;
old and yet new, for they found more in them than they had ever thought
of before. Thus at last they came to the open glade, and the broad,
wide-spreading greenwood tree which was thei