Robin Hood found that she had come to the forest, and sang to her a serenade which was overheard by the other outlaws. Alan-a-Dale, who was in love, became jealous, and the Sheriff came on to the scene, and the outlaws, finding him on their ground, took him prisoner, and Dame Durden, who secretly had been married to the Sheriff, and from whose shrewish tongue the Sheriff had fled, came to free him. She declared that if the Sheriff of Nottingham would acknowledge her, she would get him free from the stocks, into which the outlaws had put him, and would take him home. But the prospect of having to stand Dame Durden's tongue was so much worse than the stocks, that the Sheriff begged the outlaws to take him anywhere so long as it was away from his wife.
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Woman, get thee gone, I'd rather live alone! If Guy should come with the King's men, I'd turn the tables on them. |
the Sheriff cried, trying to plan a way to get free.
At that all the outlaws danced gaily about him, gibing at him and making the pompous Sheriff miserable. They were trying to pay him for his mistreatment of Robin Hood, their beloved leader.
In the height of their gaiety in rushed Sir Guy with the King's men.
"We're lost," all cried.
"You are," Sir Guy recklessly shouts, "because we're brave as lions, all of us, and shall make short work of you."
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We're brave as lions, every one, We're brave as lions—for we're two to one, |
all cried, and immediately they marched the gay outlaws off to prison and set the Sheriff free.
As it turned out, Maid Marian, the cousin and beloved of Robin Hood, had been commanded by the King himself to become Robin's wife, or rather the wife of the Earl of Huntingdon. As the false Earl, Guy had tried to make love to the maid, and to win her, but the cousins loved each other, and all Guy's efforts were quite hopeless. But now that the outlaws, and Robin Hood with them, were all in the power of the Sheriff again, the case looked serious. As outlaws, the Sheriff could hang them, every one. Little John and the leading outlaws pleaded for their friend, reminding the Sheriff and Sir Guy that, since Robin must, by the King's command, marry Marian, the Sheriff dare not kill him.