To this inn came the King's rangers, driving the widow's three sons before them.

The hands of the three youths were tied tightly behind their backs, and a cord from neck to neck fastened them all together.

So they were marched to the room where the Sheriff sat at meat, and stood trembling before him as he scowled sternly upon them.
"So," quoth he, in a great, loud, angry voice, "ye have been poaching upon the King's deer, have you?
Now I will make short work of you this day, for I will hang up all three of you as a farmer would hang up three crows to scare others of the kind from the field.

Our fair county of Nottingham hath been too long a breeding place for such naughty knaves as ye are.

I have put up with these things for many years, but now I will stamp them out once for all, and with you I will begin." Then one of the poor fellows opened his mouth to speak, but the Sheriff roared at him in a loud voice to be silent, and bade the rangers to take them away till he had done his eating and could attend to the matters concerning them.