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CHAPTER 10 - Marian Goes to Sherwood Forest

Very early next morning, Marian put on boy’s clothes and a boy’s hat and woke up Friar Tuck. The friar took his staff and Marian took her bow and arrows. Then they left the house and walked on the Great North Road through the forest.

After some hours, the friar suddenly left the road and sat down under a tree.

‘Please let’s stop, My Lady,’ he said. ‘We had no breakfast and I am very hungry!’

Marian laughed.

‘I am sorry, Friar Tuck,’ she said, ‘You are right, we will eat now.

Stay here. I will take your staff and my bow and arrow, and catch some animals. “We can cook them here in the forest.’ Marian left the friar and moved quietly between the forest trees. She saw a deer. Very quietly, she took out an arrow and put it to her bow.

‘Stop there, boy!’ said a man behind her. The man spoke very loudly.

The deer jumped at the noise and ran away into the trees. Marian was very angry. She turned to the speaker but he wore a big hood. She couldn’t see his face.

‘Well, boy,’ said the man. ‘Don’t you know that you cannot eat the king’s deer? The Sheriff of Nottingham killed two men last week because they caught a deer.’

‘I am not afraid of the sheriff,’ said Marian, ‘or of you. Leave now - or fight!’

‘Fight with you?’ the man laughed. ‘But you are only a boy! Well, you have a staff and I have one too. I will fight with you -with one hand!’

Marian fought well. She was strong and quick. With only one hand, the man could not win. She hit him again and again on his head and across his back.

‘Stop, stop!’ he laughed. ‘You are young, but you are a good fighter.’ He threw back his hood. ‘I am Robin Hood. Will you come with me, and be one of my men?’

‘Robin!’ said Marian, and threw back her hood too. Her lovely red hair fell down her back.

‘Marian!’ answered Robin. ‘What are you doing here, in the forest ? Is nobody with you ?’

‘I am with a friend, Friar Tuck,’ said Marian, ‘and he is very hungry! The deer was for him. But I think that he will be happy to eat at Robin Hood’s table.’

She and Robin went back to the road and looked for Friar Tuck.

They called his name but there was no answer.

‘Poor man!’ said Marian. ‘Perhaps he is looking for me. Perhaps he thinks that the sheriff’s men caught me!’

Then she told Robin about her father and the sheriff.

‘I cannot go home now, Robin,’ she said. ‘I want to be with you here, in Sherwood Forest. Friar Tuck will marry us. Let’s find him.

Perhaps he will want to live with us.’