Morning journal and courier., 1891-02-07
MIR. wAKEMAN,S JOURNEYINGS

incidents Tn tnc LIIe OI hODln Hood-How an Abbot Fell From Grace.
 NOTTINGHAM, England, Jan. 22. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 had tramped from Newstead Abbey, from the drear region of Robin Hoods hills, to Arnold, on my return way to Nottingham. It was late at night and no conveyance or train could be had to the ancient city. The long, lane-like manu- featuring hamlet possessed but two inns. These were "public-houses," roadside dramshops, rather than hostelries. At one had been refused entertainment for the night and warned away, because the old lady who kept it took good English oath was play-actor or other mounte- bank, and would, somehow, depart too early in the morning with more than my reckoning. At the other, ''The Lone Tree Inn," the modesty of the two maiden la dies in charge forbade the housing of an unvouched man. l could sit in the tap room parlor on the high leather-covered settles until the closing, at midnight Then must go.
 Utterly fatigued from long days wan dering in Robin Hoods land, and desper- ate at the prospect of an all-night's tramp into Nottingham, how longed for the welcome of some hedge-side gipsy camp! Expressing this in humble protest only further outlawed me at the Clone Tree Inn" at Arnold. Then, as I was being in vited to take the road, like a gipsy in deed, portly, kindlyfaced man came in. He owned the largest mill in Arnold; was more powerful man than the lord of the manor; and my fate was in abeyance while he drank his nightly glass of gin and soda, and blinked at me, as mingled emotions of suspicion, perplexity and hos pitality played over his good English face. The spinster barmaids, the rough factory hands, and all the tap-room hangers on of mill-town, awaited the great mans die tum regarding the intruder with respect full silence. This was that it never should be said that H'arnold-by Nottingham was in'ospitable or discourteous to stranger '"Ear!-'ear!" came from the tap-room contingent 'E might be play-h'actor, e might be a mountebank, e might even consort with those h'outcasts of society, the 'orrid gipsies, but h'again it should never be said that H'arnold- by Notting'a am refused the h'aiding and. "Ear,-'ear,- 'ear!' roared the audience all. So, as some of the great mans friends, some honest Nottingham butchers, would be directly returning home from Orton way, by grace and shift I was to be got into one of their cart, and thence to old Nottingham and an inn. Charging the crowd thus, and the score to myself, which was gratefully ex- punged from the records of "Lone Tree Inn," the great man of Arnold went his way, while I went to sleep.
 How long I had been dozing know not, but when I awakened it was with a sense of being shot through the earth's circum- ambient blue. Four huge fellows encased in woolen sacks to their feet had tossed me into one of their carts like quarter of beef. I struck upon pile of freshly slaughtered pork in a comfortable position at the edge of the cart-box, while '"Ow ar ye now, or cockey?" 'sNigh onto sixteen with cheerl" and like suggestive chafings were mingled with pa-tings from the crowd at the ''Lone Tree Inn" There were half-score of carts; score of butchers. Huge, awful-voiced, kindly men they were, with wonderful hallooings and song as they pushed their stout horses at terrific speed down that broad stone road through the glistening, crispy night. Cottage and castle dimly appeared and as instantly vanished. Copse and hedge seemed set in a mad pace the other way. On we sped to old Nottingham, frightening belated cottagers with the rushing, clamor and song. There were some superb voices among these rollicking Nottingham butchers, as you will every where find among the lowly of all the mid land and northern English shires. But more impressive to me- with my own head full of Robin Hood, than my perilous seat on the edge of bounding cart-boI, was the character of the songs they sung. Ev- cry one identified the butchers, or flesh er's," vocation with incidents in the life of Robin Hood.
 One of these songs told how Robin him self was butchers prentice, and became an outlaw on account of miserly master | feeding him solely on lights and liver, and | wore the flesh from his bones with the un- | merciful address with which he was forced
 to scrape the fat from the bones of ami
 mals. Another related the marvellous es-
 cape from death of Nottingham butcher
 in the year 1893, when King Edward II.
 made his ''progress" into the "north coun-
 trie." Enrsged at the dearth of meat in
 Nottingham, the king called the chief
 f1esher of the city before him, and ordered
 him, on pain of death, to provide four
 score goodly kine, dressed for the turnspit,
 to be made ready before the dawn of the
 following day. This was an impossible
 task. Passing from the kings presence
 the doomed butcher encountered beggar
 who as "a boon" asked ohly to know the
 nature of his misfortune, and immediate
 ly disappeared. The butcher passed that
 day and night preparing for eternity, and
 like loyal subject, set forth for the castle
 at dawn to get his head chopped of, when
 he found "four-score and more" beautiful
 ly-dressed carcasses of King Edwards OWL
 fallow deer hanging in the market-place
 Each had an arrow-wound in the side; and
 so it was known that Robin Hood and hi,
 men had saved the butchers life, and by
 the same token cleyerly challenged bout
 with the officers of King Edward himself
 Another, the most rollicking of all. wen
 so far as to assert that the unctuousness
 the led faces, the huge paunches, the gen
 eral good cheer, as well as some othe
 marked characteristics, of the Noting
 ham butchers, are hereditarily due to tn
 progenitor of them all. Him the bsIlar,
 asserts to have been . lordly abbot, note,