instead of a petticoat. The females are very chaste and constant to their husbands; and if any young maiden should happen to have a child before marriage, she is never esteemed afterwards. As for their food, they get it chiefly by hunting and shooting, and boil or roast all the meat they eat. Their standing dish consists of Indian corn soaked, then bruised and boiled. Their bread is likewise made of wild oats, or sunflower seeds. Their gun, tomahawk, scalping-knife, powder, and shot, they carry with them in time of war. They in war decline open engagements--bush-fighting or skulking is their discipline. They are brave when engaged, having great fortitude in enduring tortures, and are the most implacably vindictive people upon the earth; for they revenge the death of any relation, or any affront, whenever occasion presents, let the distance of time be ever so remote. After long enduring the greatest of hardships with these Indians, I at last escaped out of their hands, and went to Quebec, where I was put on board a French packet bound for England; and after a passage of six weeks, we at last, to our great joy, arrived at Plymouth on the 6th of November, 1756. * * * * * THE FAMOUS EXPLOITS OF ROBIN HOOD LITTLE JOHN AND HIS MERRY MEN ALL. INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS BIRTH, EDUCATION, AND DEATH. CHAPTER I. _The Birth and Parentage of Robin Hood._ Kind gentlemen, listen a while to my story, and I will tell you the bold exploits of the famous Robin Hood and his comrade, Little John. All England was filled with the renown of Robin Hood, and the great and the valiant stood in fear of him. He never harmed the poor, for he pitied their fate, and only spoiled the wealthy and proud, or nobles and slothful bishops, who lived in state on the fruit of the husbandman's toil. Robin was born in the merry town of Locksley, in Nottinghamshire. His father was a stout forester, and kept the deer of King Richard the First; his mother was niece to the celebrated Sir Guy of Warwick, and was sister to Squire Gamewell, of Great Gamewell Hall. One day (when Robin was about fourteen years old) his mother thus spoke to her spouse--"Dear husband, to-morrow is Christmas Day, therefore let Robin and I take a ride to Gamewell Hall this morning to see my brother and taste his good ale and pudding. The squire was overjoyed to see his sister, and young Robin learned the use of the bow, and became the best marksman in the place." CHAPTER II. _Robin's Progress to Nottingham. Being an Account of his Adventures with the Fifteen Foresters._