Once, when they were so close on his heels that it seemed impossible for him to escape, Robin exchanged garments with a cobbler, who was promptly arrested in his stead and borne off to prison.

Such was Robin's exhaustion by this time that he entered an inn, and, creeping into bed, slept so soundly that only on awaking on the morrow did he discover he had shared his bed with a monk.

Slyly substituting the cobbler's garments for those of the sleeping monk, Robin peacefully departed, while the sheriff's men, having discovered their mistake, proceeded to arrest the false cobbler! Meantime the Queen succeeded in softening the king's resentment, so Robin was allowed to rejoin his companions, and his sweetheart, Maid Marian, who could shoot nearly as well as he.
Many years now elapsed, during which King Henry died and King Richard came to the throne.

Robin, still pursued by the sheriff, once discovered in the forest a man clad in horse-skin, who, having been an outlaw too, had been promised his pardon if he would slay Robin.
Hearing him boast about what he would do, Robin challenged him first to a trial of marksmanship, and then to a bout of sword play, during which the strange outlaw was slain.

Then, donning the fallen man's strange apparel, Robin went off to Nottingham in quest of more adventures.
Meantime, Little John had entered a poor hut, where he found a woman weeping because her sons had been seized as poachers and sentenced to be hanged.