“What hallooing and what stir is this to-day?
These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
Have some unhappy passenger in chace:
They love me well; yet I have much to do,
To keep them from uncivil outrages.”
But, on the other hand, it will be at once difficult and painful to conceive,
“
When they did hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In that their pinching cave, they could discourse
The freezing hours away!” ([15]).
Their mode of life, in short, and domestic economy, of which no authentic particulars have been even traditionally preserved, are more easily to be guessed at than described. They have, nevertheless, been elegantly sketched by the animating pencil of an excellent though neglected poet:—
“The merry pranks he play’d, would ask an age to tell,
And the adventures strange that Robin Hood befell,
When Mansfield many a time for Robin hath been laid,
How he hath cousen’d them, that him would have betray’d;
How often he hath come to Nottingham disguis’d,
And cunningly escap’d, being set to be surpriz’d.
In this our spacious isle, I think there is not one,
But he hath heard some talk of him and Little John;
And to the end of time, the tales shall ne’er be done,
Of Scarlock, George a Green, and Much the miller’s son,
Of Tuck the merry frier, which many a sermon made
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and their trade.
An hundred valiant men had this brave Robin Hood,
Still ready at his call, that bowmen were right good,
All clad in Lincoln green ([16]), with caps of red and blue,
His fellow’s winded horn not one of them but knew,
When setting to their lips their little beugles shrill,
The warbling ecchos wak’d from every dale and hill.
Their bauldricks set with studs, athwart their shoulders cast,
To which under their arms their sheafs were buckled fast,
A short sword at their belt, a buckler scarce a span,
Who struck below the knee, not counted then a man:
All made of Spanish yew, their bows were wondrous strong;
They not an arrow drew, but was a cloth-yard long.
Of archery they had the very perfect craft,
With broad-arrow, or but, or prick, or roving shaft,
At marks full forty score, they us’d to prick, and rove,
Yet higher than the breast, for compass never strove;
Yet at the farthest mark a foot could hardly win:
At long-outs, short, and hoyles, each one could cleave the pin:
Their arrows finely pair’d, for timber, and for feather,
With birch and brazil piec’d to fly in any weather;
And shot they with the round, the square, or forked pile,
The loose gave such a twang, as might be heard a mile.
And of these archers brave, there was not any one,
But he could kill a deer his swiftest speed upon,
Which they did boil and roast, in many a mighty wood,
Sharp hunger the fine sauce to their more kingly food. {viii}
Then taking them to rest, his merry men and he
Slept many a summer’s night under the greenwood tree.
From wealthy abbots’ chests, and churls’ abundant store,
What oftentimes he took, he shar’d amongst the poor:
No lordly bishop came in lusty Robin’s way,
To him before he went, but for his pass must pay:
The widow in distress he graciously reliev’d,
And remedied the wrongs of many a virgin griev’d: ([17])
He from the husband’s bed no married woman wan,
But to his mistress dear, his loved Marian,
Was ever constant known, which wheresoe’er she came,
Was sovereign of the woods; chief lady of the game:
Her clothes tuck’d to the knee, and dainty braided hair,
With bow and quiver arm’d, she wander’d here and there,
Amongst the forests wild; Diana never knew
Such pleasures, nor such harts as Mariana slew.” [3]
That our hero and his companions, while they lived in the woods, had recourse to robbery for their better support is neither to be concealed nor to be denied. Testimonies to this purpose, indeed, would be equally endless and unnecessary. Fordun, in the fourteenth century, calls him “ille famosissimus siccarius,” that most celebrated robber, and Major terms him and Little John “famatissimi latrones.” But it is to be remembered, according to the confession of the latter historian, that, in these exertions of power, he took away the goods of rich men only; never killing any person, unless he was attacked or resisted: that he would not suffer a woman to be maltreated; nor ever took anything from the poor, but charitably fed them with the wealth he drew from the abbots. I disapprove, says he, of the rapine {ix} of the man: but he was the most humane and the prince of all robbers ([18]). In allusion, no doubt, to this irregular and predatory course of life, he has had the honour to be compared to the illustrious Wallace, the champion and deliverer of his country; and that, it is not a little remarkable, in the latter’s own time ([19]).
Our hero, indeed, seems to have held bishops, abbots, priests, and monks, in a word, all the clergy, regular or secular, in decided aversion.
“These byshoppes and thyse archebyshoppes,
Ye shall them bete and bynde,”
was an injunction carefully impressed upon his followers. The Abbot of Saint Mary’s, in York ([20]), from some unknown cause, appears to have been distinguished by particular animosity; and the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire ([21]), who may have been too active and officious in his endeavours to apprehend him, was the unremitted object of his vengeance.
Notwithstanding, however, the aversion in which he appears to have held the clergy of every denomination, he was a man of exemplary piety, according to the notions of that age, and retained a domestic chaplain (Frier Tuck, no doubt) for the diurnal celebration of the divine mysteries. This we learn from an anecdote preserved by Fordun ([22]), as an instance of those actions which the historian allows to deserve commendation. One day, as he heard mass, which he was most devoutly accustomed to do (nor would {x} he, in whatever necessity, suffer the office to be interrupted,) he was espied by a certain sheriff and officers belonging to the king, who had frequently before molested him in that most secret recess of the wood where he was at mass. Some of his people, who perceived what was going forward, advised him to fly with all speed, which, out of reverence to the sacrament, which he was then most devoutly worshipping, he absolutely refused to do. But the rest of his men having fled for fear of death, Robin, confiding solely in Him whom he reverently worshipped, with a very few, who by chance were present, set upon his enemies, whom he easily vanquished; and, being enriched with their spoils and ransom, he always held the ministers of the Church and masses in greater veneration ever after, mindful of what is vulgarly said: