We had better set .... really early

hated Robin and would have been very glad if any one had killed him.

The Sheriff was a very unkind man. He treated the poor Saxons very badly. He often took away all their money, and their houses and left them to starve. Sometimes, for a very little fault, he would cut off their ears or fingers. The poor people used to go into the wood, and Robin would give them food and money. Sometimes they went home again, but very often they stayed with him, and became his men.

The Sheriff knew this, so he hated Robin all the more, and he was never so happy as when he caught one of Robin's men and locked him up in prison.

But try how he might, he could not catch Robin. All the same Robin used to go [35] to Nottingham very often, but he was always so well disguised that the Sheriff never knew him. So he always escaped.

The Sheriff was too much afraid of him to go into the forest to try to take him. He knew his men were no match for Robin's. Robin's men served him and fought for him because they loved him. The Sheriff's men only served him because they feared him.

One day Robin was walking through the forest when he met a butcher.

This butcher was riding gaily along to the market at Nottingham. He was dressed in a blue linen coat, with leather belt. On either side of his strong grey pony hung a basket full of meat.

In these days as there were no trains, everything had to be sent by road. The roads were so bad that even carts could not go along them very much, for the wheels stuck in the mud. Everything was carried on horseback, in sacks or baskets called panniers.

The butcher rode gaily along, whistling [36] as he went. Suddenly Robin stepped from under the trees and stopped him.

"What have you there, my man?" he asked.

"Butcher meat," replied the man. "Fine prime beef and mutton for Nottingham Market. Do you want to buy some?"

"Yes, I do," said Robin. "I'll buy it all and your pony too. How much do you want for it? I should like to go to Nottingham and see what kind of butcher I will make."

So the butcher sold his pony and all his meat to Robin. Then Robin changed clothes with him. He put on the butcher's blue clothes and leather belt, and the butcher went off in Robin's suit of Lincoln green, feeling very grand indeed.

Then Robin mounted his pony and off he went to Nottingham to sell his meat at the market.

When he arrived he found the whole town in a bustle. In those days there were very few shops, so every one used to go to market to buy and sell. The country people brought butter and eggs and honey to sell. With the money they got they bought platters [37] and mugs, pots and pans, or whatever they wanted, and took it back to the country with them.

All sorts of people came to buy: fine ladies and poor women, rich knights and gentlemen, and humble workers, every one pushing and crowding together. Robin found it quite difficult to drive his pony through the crowd to the corner of the market place where the butchers had their stalls.

He got there at last, however, laid out his meat, and began to cry with the best of them.

"Prime meat, ladies. Come and buy. Cheapest meat in all the market, ladies. Come buy, come buy. Twopence a pound, ladies. Twopence a pound. Come buy. Come buy."

"What!" said every one, "beef at twopence a pound! I never heard of such a thing. Why it is generally tenpence."

You see Robin knew nothing at all about selling meat, as he never bought any. He and his men used to live on what they shot in the forest.

[38] When it became known that there was a new butcher, who was selling his meat for twopence a pound, every one came crowding round his stall eager to buy. All the other butchers stood idle until Robin had no more beef and mutton left to sell.

As these butchers had nothing to do, they began to talk among themselves and say, "Who is this man? He has never been here before."

"Do you think he has stolen the meat?"

"Perhaps his father has just died and left him a business."

"Well, his money won't last long at this rate."

"The sooner he loses it all, the better for us. We will never be able to sell anything as long as he comes here giving away beef at twopence a pound."

"It is perfectly ridiculous," said one old man, who seemed to be the chief butcher. "These fifty years have I come and gone to Nottingham market, and I have never seen the like of it—never. He is ruining the trade, that's what he is doing.

[39] They stood at their stalls sulky and cross, while all their customers crowded round Robin.

Shouts of laughter came from his corner, for he was not only selling beef and mutton, but making jokes about it all the time.

"I tell you what," said the old butcher, "it is no use standing here doing nothing. We had better go talk to him, and find out, if we can, who he is. We must ask him to come and have dinner with us and the Sheriff in the town-hall to-day." For on market days the butchers used to have dinner altogether in the town-hall, after market was over, and the Sheriff used to come and have dinner with them.

"So, the butchers stepped up to jolly Robin,

Acquainted with him for to be;

Come, butcher, one said, we be all of one trade,

Come, will you dine with me?"

"Thank you," said Robin. "I should like [40] nothing better. I have had a busy morning and am very hungry and thirsty."

"Come along, then," said the butchers.

The old man led the way with Robin, and the others followed two by two.

As they walked along, the old butcher began asking Robin questions, to try and find out something about him.

"You have not been here before?" he said.

"Have I not?" replied Robin.

"I have not seen you, at least."

"Have you not?"

"You are new to the business?"

"Am I?"

"Well, you seem to be," said the old butcher, getting rather cross.

"Do I?" replied Robin laughing.

At last they came to the town-hall, and though they had talked all the time the old butcher had got nothing out of Robin, and was not a bit wiser.

- Son: ...............
- Father: I'm sure it wasn't. this is the third accident you have had this year.
-Son: You're very angry now, dad. we had better talk about this later on.

A) I do apologize. i promise it won't happen again.
B) was the car in good condition?
C) But it wasn't my fault. you've got to believe me.

at a hotel in Sochi.The weather was hot and sunny,and we went to the beach every day.We swam a lot and stayed in the sun.My father taught me to boat,and we often went boating and fishing early in the morning.In July we came back to Moscow.My parents began working and I made a trip to St.petersburg to visit my grandfather who lives there.My sister Lena went to Yaroslavl to stay with our cousin Marina.Lena and I to some interesting places in and near Moscow.We were in the Kremlin museums,the pushkin Museums and in Archangelskoe.We were going to go to Vladimir too but couldnt.The weather was terrible that day,it rained and it was very windy and cold.In the middle of August Lena and I went to London ti visit the Barkers and we had a wonderful time there.Now I am back at school and happy to see my friends again.In simmer I made a lot of pictures.I am going to send some to London,my friends John Barker Переведите пожалуйста

спасибо!



When I was four months old, my mother died. I had no brothers or sisters. So all my boyhood, from the age of four months, there were just two of us, my father and me. We lived in an old gypsy caravan. My father owned the filling station and the caravan, that was about all he owned in the world. It was a very small filling station on a small country road with fields and woody hills around it.
While I was still a baby, my father washed me and fed me, pushed me in my pram to the doctor and did all the millions of other things a mother normally does for her child. That is not an easy task for a man, especially when he has to earn his living at the same time.
But my father was a cheerful man. I thinks that he gave me all the live he had felt for my mother when she was alive. We were very close. During my early years, I never had a moments unhappiness, and here I am on my fifth birthday.
I was a little boy as you can see, with dirt and oil all over me, but that was because I spent all day in the workshop helping my father with the cars. The workshop was stone building. My father built that himself with loving care. We are engineers, you and I, he said to me. We earn our living by repairing engines and we can’t do good work in a bad workshop. It was a fine workshop, big enough to take one car comfortably.
The caravan was our house and our home. My father said it was at least one hundred and fifty years old. Many gipsy children, he said, he been born in it and had grown up within its wooden walls. Different people had knocked at its doors, different people had lived in it. But now its best years were over. There was only one room in the caravan, and it wasn’t much bigger than a modern bathroom.
Although we had electric lights in the workshop, we were not allowed to have them in the caravan as it was dangerous. So we got our heat and light in the same way as the gypsies had done years ago. There was a wood-burning stove that kept us warm in winter and there were candles in candlesticks. I think that the stew cooked by my father is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. One plate was never enough.
For furniture, we had two narrow beds, two chairs and a small table covered with a tablecloth and some bowls, plates, cups, forks and spoons on it. Those were all the home comforts we had. They were all we needed.
I really lived living in that gypsy caravan. I lived the evenings when I was in my bed and my father was telling stories. I was happy because I was sure that when I went to sleep my father would still be there, very close to me, sitting in his chair by the fire.
My father, without any doubt, was the most wonderful and exciting father any boy ever had. Here is a picture of him.
You may think, if you don’t know him well, that he was a serous man. He wasn’t. He was actually full of fun. What made him look so serious and sometimes sad was the fact that he nevr smiled with his mouth. He did it all with his eyes. He had bright blue eyes and when he thought of something funny, you could see a golden light dancing in the middle of each eye. But the mouth never moved. My father was not what you would call an educated man. I doubt he had read many books in his life. But he was an excellent storyteller. He promised to make up a bedtime story for me every time I asked him. He always kept his promise. The best stories were turned into serials and went on many nights running.