Alice Gamwell, at Little John's request, wrote three letters of one tenour;
and Little John, having attached them to three blunt arrows, saddled the
fleetest steed in old Sir Guy of Gamwell's stables, mounted, and rode first to
Arlingford Castle, where he shot one of the three arrows over the battlements;
then to Rubygill Abbey, where he shot the second into the abbey-garden;
then back past Gamwell-Hall to the borders of Sherwood Forest,
where he shot the third into the wood. Now the first of these arrows
lighted in the nape of the neck of Lord Fitzwater, and lodged itself firmly
between his skin and his collar; the second rebounded with the hollow
vibration of a drumstick from the shaven sconce of the abbot of Rubygill;
and the third pitched perpendicularly into the centre of a venison pasty
in which Robin Hood was making incision.
Matilda ran up to her father in the court of Arlingford Castle,
seized the arrow, drew off the letter, and concealed it in her
bosom before the baron had time to look round, which he did
with many expressions of rage against the impudent villain
who had shot a blunt arrow into the nape of his neck.
"But you know, father," said Matilda, "a sharp arrow in the same place would
have killed you; therefore the sending a blunt one was very considerate."
"Considerate, with a vengeance!" said the baron.
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