thers, for thou hast a cunning turn to thy wits." Then Robin kissed the
three upon the cheeks, and they kissed him, and so they parted company.

Not long after this, a score or more of the King's men came clattering
up to the door of the inn at Barnet Town. Here they leaped from their
horses and quickly surrounded the place, the leader of the band and four
others entering the room where the yeomen had been. But they found that
their birds had flown again, and that the King had been balked a second
time.

"Methought that they were naughty fellows," said the host, when he heard
whom the men-at-arms sought. "But I heard that blue-clad knave say that
they would go straight forward to Saint Albans; so, an ye hurry forward,
ye may, perchance, catch them on the highroad betwixt here and there."
For this news the leader of the band thanked mine host right heartily,
and, calling his men together, mounted and set forth again, galloping
forward to Saint Albans upon a wild goose chase.

After Little John and Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale had left the highway
near garnet, they traveled toward the eastward, without stopping, as
long as their legs could carry them, until they came to Chelmsford, in
Essex. Thence they turned northward, and came through Cambridge and
Lincolnshire, to the good town of Gainsborough. Then, striking to the
westward and the south, they came at last to the northern borders of
Sherwood Forest, without in all that time having met so much as a single
band of the King's men. Eight days they journeyed thus ere they reached
the woodlands in safety, but when they got to the greenwood glade, they
found that Robin had not yet returned.

For Robin was not as lucky in getting back as his men had been, as you
shall presently hear.

After having left the great northern road, he turned his face to the
westward, and so came past Aylesbury, to fair Woodstock, in Oxfordshire.
Thence he turned his footsteps northward, traveling for a great distance
by way of Warwick Town, till he came to Dudley, in Staffordshire. Seven
days it took him to journey thus far, and then he thought he had gotten
far enough to the north, so, turning toward the eastward, shunning the
main roads, and choosing byways and grassy lanes, he went, by way of
Litchfield and Ashby de la Zouch, toward Sherwood, until he came to a
place called Stanton. And now Robin's heart began to laugh aloud, for
he thought that his danger had gone by, and that his