Page:Famous exploits of Robin Hood, Little John, and his merry men all.pdf/6

Rh Well,' said Robin, 'as you sub, I will grant you your lives, but you shall not escape without some reward for your deeds.' He and his men then stripped them of their clothes, leaving them no covering but their trowsers, and having cut off their hair and their ears, daubed their faces with a mixture of yellow and red; afterwards they bound their hands, and tied a large pair of antlers on each of their heads, and in this most ridiculous state, drove them back into the town, telling them, if they offered to return, they should not escape with their lives. As soon as they entered the streets, the whole place was in an uproar, and what with the barking of an hundred dogs, the squalling of women, and hooting of boys and men, there was such a hubbub as never before had been known in the town of Nottingham.

When bold Robin Hood was about twenty years old, he happened to meet with a jolly stranger, whom he afterwards called Little John. This man, though called little, was a lusty young blade; his limbs were large, and his person seven feet high. Wherever he went, people quaked at his name, and he made all his enemies to fly before him. It was thus their acquaintance began:—

Robin and his men had built, in