our
stout Sheriff catcheth me without disguise, I am like to be run up more
quickly than thy sons, let me tell thee, dame."

Then the old woman told him that she had in the house some of the
clothes of her good husband, who had died only two years before. These
she brought to Little John, who, doffing his garb of Lincoln green, put
them on in its stead. Then, making a wig and false beard of uncarded
wool, he covered his own brown hair and beard, and, putting on a great,
tall hat that had belonged to the old peasant, he took his staff in one
hand and his bow in the other, and set forth with all speed to where the
Sheriff had taken up his inn.

A mile or more from Nottingham Town, and not far from the southern
borders of Sherwood Forest, stood the cosy inn bearing the sign of the
King's Head. Here was a great bustle and stir on this bright morning,
for the Sheriff and a score of his men had come to stop there and await
Guy of Gisbourne's return from the forest. Great hiss and fuss of
cooking was going on in the kitchen, and great rapping and tapping of
wine kegs and beer barrels was going on in the cellar. The Sheriff sat
within, feasting merrily of the best the place afforded, and the
Sheriff's men sat upon the bench before the door, quaffing ale, or lay
beneath the shade of the broad-spreading oak trees, talking and jesting
and laughing. All around stood the horses of the band, with a great
noise of stamping feet and a great switching of tails. To this inn came
the King's rangers, driving the widow's three sons before them. The
hands of the three youths were tied tightly behind their backs, and a
cord from neck to neck fastened them all together. So they were marched
to the room where the Sheriff sat at meat, and stood trembling before
him as he scowled sternly upon them.

"So," quoth he, in a great, loud, angry voice, "ye have been poaching
upon the King's deer, have you? Now I will make short work of you this
day, for I will hang up all three of you as a farmer would hang up three
crows to scare others of the kind from the field. Our fair county of
Nottingham hath been too long a breeding place for such naughty knaves
as ye are. I have put up with these things for many years, but now I
will stamp them out once for all, and with you I will begin."

Then one of the poor fellows opened his mouth to speak, but the Sheriff
roared at him in a loud voice to be silent, and bade the rangers to take
them away till he