the thickest of the crowd.

Now Robin Hood and his band might have slain half of the Sheriff's men
had they desired to do so, but they let them push out of the press and
get them gone, only sending a bunch of arrows after them to hurry them
in their flight.

"Oh stay!" shouted Will Stutely after the Sheriff. "Thou wilt never
catch bold Robin Hood if thou dost not stand to meet him face to face."
But the Sheriff, bowing along his horse's back, made no answer but only
spurred the faster.

Then Will Stutely turned to Little John and looked him in the face till
the tears ran down from his eyes and he wept aloud; and kissing his
friend's cheeks, "O Little John!" quoth he, "mine own true friend, and
he that I love better than man or woman in all the world beside!
Little did I reckon to see thy face this day, or to meet thee this side
Paradise." Little John could make no answer, but wept also.

Then Robin Hood gathered his band together in a close rank, with Will
Stutely in the midst, and thus they moved slowly away toward Sherwood,
and were gone, as a storm cloud moves away from the spot where a tempest
has swept the land. But they left ten of the Sheriff's men lying along
the ground wounded--some more, some less--yet no one knew who smote them
down.

Thus the Sheriff of Nottingham tried thrice to take Robin Hood and
failed each time; and the last time he was frightened, for he felt how
near he had come to losing his life; so he said, "These men fear neither
God nor man, nor king nor king's officers. I would sooner lose mine