Page:Maid Marian - Peacock (1822).djvu/127

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Maid Marian.
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ments as if in inward prayer. A deep silence among the attendant crowd accompanied this action of the friar; interrupted only by the hollow toll of the death-bell, at long and dreary intervals. Suddenly, the friar threw off his holy robes, and appeared a forester clothed in green, with a sword in his right hand and a horn in his left. With the sword he cut the bonds of William Gamwell, who instantly snatched a sword from one of the sheriff's men, and with the horn he blew a loud blast, which was answered at once by four bugles from the quarters of the four winds, and from each quarter came five-and-twenty bowmen running all on a row.

"Treason! treason!" cried the sheriff. Old Sir Guy sprang to his son's side, and so did Little John; and the four, setting back to back, kept the sheriff and his men at bay till the bowmen came within shot and let fly

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