3-047-210 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Back to Back Stood The Dauntless Two', 1932. 'Robin...learned that Will Scarlet had been taken prisoner, and was lodged in a dungeon in Nottingham Castle. It has been proclaimed that on the morrow he would be publicly hanged on the gallows outside the city wall...At the appointed hour the Castle gates were thrown open and Will came out, guarded on every side...Robin Hood sprang out from behind a bush and, pushing forward to the scaffold, cried, "Will, dear Will, take leave of me". Before the sheriff and his varlets could interfere, he cut the prisoner's bonds, and, snatching a sword from one of the guards, placed it in Will's hand. "Defend yourself", said he, "there is help at hand!". Back to back stood the dauntless two, wielding their swords to such good purpose that the astonished guards ran hither and thither not knowing what to do'. From "Robin Hood and His Life in the Merry Greenwood", by Rose Yeatman Woolf, illustrated by Howard Davie. [Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd, London, 1932]