Here for some years dwelt one Hugh Fitzooth as Head Forester, with his good wife and son Robert.
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.
There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were there.
The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to himself: 'You will take him home with you, and bring him up with your Lina.' He took it home, therefore, and the two children grew up together.
It was well for Robin Hood that that same
forester's head was spinning with ale, or else he would never have taken another step.
"We are all freemen, and I trow that a yeoman's cudgel is as good as a
forester's knife.
Meanwhile Vasili Andreevich, with his feet and the ends of the reins, urged the horse on in the direction in which for some reason he expected the forest and
forester's hut to be.
``Gramercy for thy sack,'' said Wamba; ``but think'st thou it is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into a sinful
forester?''
But an I would, I could not, for that the accuser came masked by night, and told the
forester, and straightway got him hence again, and so the
forester knoweth him not."
"What of your husband, the
forester? Always the same with you people.
It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in the words of this brown
forester, but I know that the other passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, and that presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away, were got rid of.
Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards, he met the three
foresters already returning from their unsuccessful pursuit.