It commands a wide prospect over the valley of
Newstead, and here the bold outlaw is said to have taken his seat, and
kept a look-out upon the roads below, watching for merchants, and
bishops, and other wealthy travellers, upon whom to pounce down, like
an eagle from his eyrie.
Descending from the cliffs and remounting my horse, a ride of a mile or
two further along a narrow "robber path," as it was called, which wound
up into the hills between perpendicular rocks, led to an artificial
cavern cut in the face of a cliff, with a door and window wrought
through the living stone. This bears the name of Friar Tuck's cell, or
hermitage, where, according to tradition, that jovial anchorite used to
make good cheer and boisterous revel with his freebooting comrades.
Such were some of the vestiges of old Sherwood and its renowned
"yeomandrie," which I visited in the neighborhood of Newstead. The
worthy clergyman who officiated as chaplain at the Abbey, seeing my
zeal in the cause, informed me of a considerable tract of the ancient
forest, still in existence about ten miles distant. There were many
fine old oaks in it, he said, that had stood for centuries, but were
now shattered and "stag-headed," that is to say, their upper branches
were bare, and blasted, and straggling out like the antlers of, a deer.
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