“Who are you, fellow?” asked the Sheriff sharply.
“Naught save a poor old palmer. But I can shrive their souls and hang their bodies most devoutly.”
“Very good,” replied the other. “The fee to-day is thirteen pence; and I will add thereunto some suits of clothing for that ragged back of yours.”
“God bless ye!” said the palmer. And he went with the soldier to the jail to prepare his three men for execution.
Just before the stroke of noon the doors of the prison opened and the procession of the condemned came forth. Down through the long lines of packed people they walked to the market-place, the palmer in the lead, and the widow’s three sons marching firmly erect between soldiers.
At the gallows foot they halted. The palmer whispered to them, as though offering last words of consolation; and the three men, with arms bound tightly behind their backs, ascended the scaffold, followed by their confessor.
Then Robin stepped to the edge of the scaffold, while the people grew still as death; for they desired to hear the last words uttered to the victims. But Robin’s voice did not quaver forth weakly, as formerly, and his figure had stiffened bolt upright beneath the black robe that covered his rags.
“Hark ye, proud Sheriff!” he cried. “I was ne’er a hangman in all my life, nor do I now intend to begin that trade. Accurst be he who first set the fashion of hanging! I have but three more words to say. Listen to them!”
And forth from the robe he drew his horn and blew three loud blasts thereon. Then his keen hunting-knife flew forth and in a trice, Stout Will, Lester, and merry John were free men and had sprung forward and seized the halberds from the nearest soldiers guarding the gallows.
“Seize them! ‘Tis Robin Hood!” screamed the Sheriff, “an hundred pounds if ye hold them, dead or alive!”