aside for the King's hunting, and no man might shoot deer therein
under penalty of death. These forests were guarded by the King's
Foresters, the chief of whom, in each wood, was no mean man but
equal in authority to the Sheriff in his walled town, or even to
my lord Bishop in his abbey.
One of the greatest of royal preserves was Sherwood and
Barnesdale forests near the two towns of Nottingham and
Barnesdale. Here for some years dwelt one Hugh Fitzooth as Head
Forester, with his good wife and son Robert. The boy had been
born in Lockesley town--in the year 1160, stern records say--and
was often called Lockesley, or Rob of Lockesley. He was a
comely, well-knit stripling, and as soon as he was strong enough
to walk his chief delight was to go with his father into the
forest. As soon as his right arm received thew and sinew he
learned to draw the long bow and speed a true arrow. While on
winter evenings his greatest joy was to hear his father tell of
bold Will o' the Green, the outlaw, who for many summers defied
the King's Foresters and feasted with his men upon King's deer.
And on other stormy days the boy learned to whittle out a
straight shaft for the long bow, and tip it with gray goose
feathers.
The fond mother sighed when she saw the boy's face light up at
these woodland tales. She was of gentle birth, and had hoped to
see her son famous at court or abbey. She taught him to read and
to write, to doff his cap without awkwardness and to answer
directly and truthfully both lord and peasant. But the boy,
although he took kindly to these lessons of breeding, was yet
happiest when he had his beloved bow in hand and strolled at
will, listening to the murmur of the trees.
Two playmates had Rob in these gladsome early days. One was Will
Gamewell, his father's brother's son, who lived at Gamewell
Lodge, hard by Nottingham town. The other was Marian Fitzwalter,
only child of the Earl of Huntingdon. The castle of Huntingdon
could be seen from the top of one of the tall trees in Sherwood;
and on more than one bright day Rob's white signal from this tree
told Marian that he awaited her there: for you must know that Rob
did not visit her at the castle. His father and her father were
enemies. Some people whispered that Hugh Fitzooth was the
rightful Earl of Huntingdon, but that he had been defrauded out
of his lands by Fitzwalter, who had won the King's favor by a
crusade to the Holy Land. But little cared Rob or Marian for
this enmity, however it had arisen. They knew that the great
green--wood was open to them, and that the wide, wide world was
full of the scent of flowers and the song of birds.
Days of youth speed all too swiftly, and troubled skies come all
too soon. Rob's father had two other enemies besides Fitzwalter,
in the persons of the lean Sheriff of Nottingham and the fat
Bishop of Hereford. These three enemies one day got possession
of the King's ear and whispered therein to such good--or
evil--purpose that Hugh Fitzooth was removed from his post of
King's Forester. He and his wife and Rob, then a youth of
nineteen, were descended upon, during a cold winter's evening,
and dispossessed without warning. The Sheriff arrested the