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ROBIN HOOD’S GHOST,

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ROBIN HOOD’S GHOST.

(Being a true account of a ghost as seen by Mr. Thackeray and Charles Dickens, and others, in a Nottingham graveyard)

 

By Joaquin MILLER.

 

HERWOOD FOREST, in the centre of which
Nottingham now stands, was famous as a re-
treat for warlike and lawless men even in the
time of the Romans; for the woods were wonder-
fully deep and dense and the trees of great size
and beauty. After many hundred years the woods
began to grow narrower and thinner, and fields of
grain took their places. But still, even in Robin
Hood’s time, enough remained to make a very se-
cure hiding-place for Robin and his many merry
men. And his exploits here, were they all known,
would fill many. books.

The king and his court would come out here to
hunt, all the way from London, in great gilded car-
riages, with pompous powdered footmen holding on
behind. Robin did not like these, and he played
them so many sorry tricks that the king set a price
on his head.

But as we all know, Robin Hood always es-
caped, for he had many true friends, and lived to
die of old age in his dear leafy old Sherwood
Forest, near Nottingham.

This Nottingham is, and always was, a wonder-
ful place. Here many of the beautiful laces of
the world have long been made. It is now a
very wealthy city and has nearly a quarter of a
million people, and it is building, too, all the time
as fast as any Western town. The name at first
was spelled JVotteham. If you take your Latin
wd Saxon books and look up these words, you
aill find what they mean. “You see the north bank
of the Trent River here is a great steep sandstone
mountain, and into this sandstone, thousands of
years ago, the wild inhabitants dug holes and made
for themselves dark homes, or homes of night:
Notte-ham.

Of course the dwellers in these caves were never
c)nquered; and Robin Hood was as safe, once
under the ground, as in a castle; and a great deal
more so indeed; for these dark passages reached
for miles and miles under the earth, and were all
connected together. And as they were dark and

crooked and full of pits and falls known only to
Robin Hood and his men, no soldiers ever dared
venture far to follow him.

As England began to be civilized the hundreds
and thousands of women sitting at the mouths of
these caves looking out toward the sun, thought to
themselves that they must do something besides
harbor their robber husbands and carry wood and
water. And so sitting there at the mouths of their
caves in the sunlight, they began to weave lace.
You can understand that with the dark cave be-
hind, and the bright sun pouring in before, they
could see the fine threads clearly and could do won-
derful work. And thus was laid the foundation of
one of the greatest industries, as well as one of
the wealthiest cities, in all this world. Do not
forget this. And now we are going to come to
the ghost.

Three years ago I spent the summer in Sher-
wood Forest. Some of the time I lived at New-
stead Abbey, the beautiful and stately old home of
Lord Byron. And a portion of the summer I
spent at Bestwood, with the Duke of St. Albans.

The name and estate of Bestwood came about
in this way: Little Nell Gwynne, who had once
been a poor girl, and sang and sold oranges in
the streets of London, was brought out here on
one occasion with the king and his hunting party.
The poor girl had worked her way up in the world,
and had persuaded some wealthy people to found
a hospital for poor and unfortunate soldiers and
sailors, so that she became a great favorite and
every one loved her But with all her influence
and good deeds she was not rich. And so on this
occasion, she asked the king for a bit of land in
Sherwood Forest, where she might have a home
and settle down and live and die in peace, away
from the excitement and sin of London; and the
king at last consented to give her as much land
as she could set a mark around before break-
fast.

Now the dews are heavy in Sherwood Forest,