Outlaw by Michael Morpurgo Read Free Book Online

his sword and laughed till the tears ran down his face, the whole fat bulk of him wobbling like a great jelly. Robin saw his moment had come. His sword stood where he had left it, against the alder tree. He sprang to his feet, grabbed it, and with one swipe knocked the friar’s sword from his grasp. Suddenly the friar was not laughing any more.
    “Now, fat man,” cried Robin, his sword deep into the friar’s several chins. “You shall carry me back over the river, not once but twice; there and back because I am only half your weight. Only fair, I think. Then we’ll be even and you can go your way, and I’ll go mine. No hard feelings, eh?”
    “By God’s good grace,” said the friar, “you’re a fine and fair man, even if you are a mite skinny. Hop on, I won’t even feel you’re there.”
    Sure enough, the friar strode across the river so fast that Robin barely had time to enjoy his triumph before he found himself being carried back again. They were halfway back when the friar suddenly stopped. “Get on, you great donkey,” Robin bellowed, kicking him on. But the friar was lifting his nose and sniffing the air.
    “By God’s good grace,” he said, “you stink like an old badger. What you need is a good bath.” And with that he leant forward and tossed Robin off his back. Robin was not easily roused to anger, but as he sat there soaking and cold in the river, listening to the fat friar’s mocking laughter, his temper suddenly snapped. He charged out of the river, snatched up his sword and went for the friar like a wild thing. “Temper, temper,” scoffed the friar, standing his ground and parrying with consummate ease every frantic thrust and slash. Worst of allthough, the friar would not stop laughing. The man was playing with him, and Robin knew it. This only served to infuriate him all the more. He was losing and there was nothing he could do about it. As his father had told him often enough: once you think you might lose, then you will lose. Before he knew it, Robin saw his sword flying through the air and felt again the friar’s sword at his throat.
    “By God’s good grace, you’re an angry young man with a wicked temper. All I asked, and politely it was too, was where I might find this Robin Hood.”
    “Well, look no further, friar,” Robin said, pushing aside the sword. “You’re looking at him.”
    “You? Robin Hood? But I heard he outwitted the sheriff, Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the whole miserable bunch of them, all by himself. I heard he could handle a sword better than any man alive.”
    “I’m better with a bow and arrow,” Robin replied sheepishly.
    The friar lowered his sword. “You really are Robin Hood, leader of the Outlaws? But you’re little more than a boy.”
    Robin retrieved his horn from under the tree and blew on it three times, long and hard, the Outlaws’ call for help. “You’ll see soon enough,” said Robin, ferreting in the friar’s sack. He drew out a golden cross. “So you robbed a church, did you?”
    “In a manner of speaking, yes,” replied the friar, who was suddenly serious now. “And I’ll tell you why. I was staying at Fountains Abbey, with the monks, as I often do when I pass by. And one Sunday morning from the pulpit, I spoke up for Robin Hood and his Outlaws, for all they were doing for the poor, for the unloved, for those our dear Lord loves more than anyone. The sheriff heardit, drove the monks out and took their abbey from them. He gave it over to the she-devil, the Abbess of Kirkleigh, sister to the sheriff, and Guy of Gisbourne’s lover too – did you know that? I may be a sinner. I drink too much, I know it, and my midriff vouches for my indulgence in at least one of the seven deadly sins, but compared to that witch, I am an angel, an angel, I tell you. So I went back and rescued what I could of the abbey’s treasures before she got her evil hands on them. It is little enough, but it belongs to God and God would want it spent where it