r, 'No, but this stranger, fighting on the bridge, got
the better of me, and tumbled me into the stream.'

At this the foresters seized the stranger, and would have ducked him
had not their leader bade them stop, and begged the stranger to stay
with them and make one of themselves. 'Here is my hand,' replied the
stranger, 'and my heart with it. My name, if you would know it, is
John Little.'

'That must be altered,' cried Will Scarlett; 'we will call a feast,
and henceforth, because he is full seven feet tall and round the waist
at least an ell, he shall be called Little John.'

And thus it was done; but at the feast Little John, who always liked
to know exactly what work he had to do, put some questions to Robin
Hood. 'Before I join hands with you, tell me first what sort of life
is this you lead? How am I to know whose goods I shall take, and whose
I shall leave? Whom I shall beat, and whom I shall refrain from
beating?'

And Robin answered: 'Look that you harm not any tiller of the ground,
nor any yeoman of the greenwood--no, nor no Knight nor Squire, unless
you have heard him ill spoken of. But if Bishops or Archbishops come
your way, see that you spoil _them_, and mark that you always hold in
your mind the High Sheriff of Nottingham.'

This being settled, Robin Hood declared Little John to be second in
command to himself among the brotherhood of the forest, and the new
outlaw never forgot to 'hold in his mind' the High Sheriff of
Nottingham, who was the bitterest enemy the foresters had.

LITTLE JOHN'S FIRST ADVENTURE

Robin Hood, however, had no liking for a company of idle men about
him, and he at once sent off Little John and Will Scarlett to the
great road known as Watling Street, with orders to hide among the
trees and wait till some adventure might come to them; and if they
took captive Earl or Baron, Abbot or Knight, he was to be brought
unharmed back to Robin Hood.

But all along Watling Street the road was bare; white and hard it lay
in the sun, without the tiniest cloud of dust to show that a rich
company might be coming: east and west the land lay still.

At length, just where a side path turned into the broad highway, there
rode a Knight, and a sorrier man than he never sat a horse on summer
day. One foot only was in the stirrup, the other hung carelessly by
his side; his head was bowed, the reins dropped loose, and his horse
went on as he would. At so sad a sight the hearts of the outlaw