The Children of Israel is another story that was written by Richard Carpenter. It concerns a family of Jews (Father, Daughter and two Grand-chidren) who are living in Nottingham at the time. They are a deeply religious family and take special care of their 'Holy Book'.
At the same time in Sherwood, Robin is planning an attack on the Sheriff as he returns to Nottingham. Unfortunately he doesn't know which way the Sheriff will be coming from, so he sends Will, John, Nasir and Tuck one way and he waits on the other route. However, during this time Robin and Will Scarlet are not exactly seeing eye-to-eye and there is a certain amount of bad feeling between the two of them. When the Sheriff returns down the route that Will is guarding, he sees it as his chance to undermine Robins authority. He persuades the others that they can take the Sheriff's men on by themselves and they attack. They turn out to be hopelessly outnumbered and Friar Tuck gets knocked unconcious during the fight. In the end they have to retreat back into Sherwood. When Robin finds out that Will attacked wthout informing him he looses his rag a little, to say the least!!
When the Sheriff finally gets back to the castle he finds Gisburne lazing around in his chair having not prepared for his arrival and deals him the usual barrage of insults! Soon DeTallement and his daughter (from the Jewish family) turn uo to ask the Sheriff to give back the money that they lent to him. DeRainault is appaled by this demand and comes up with a plan to incite a riot against the Jews and drive them all out of Nottingham. Gisburne, however, has taken a liking to the daughter, Sarah and warns them of the upcoming riot with a letter. When the riots break out, the family has already left Notiingham and are on their way through Sherwood. In the meantime it is touch and go as to whether Tuck will survive and the feud between Robin and Will is still going strong. So strong, in fact, that Will disappears and Robin tries, but fails, to break his faith to Hearne.
During their trip through Sherwood, the Jewish family bump into Will Scarlet who simply takes their money and goes back into the forest. Then, a little further on in their journey, Gisburne catches up with them and tries to get Sarah to agree to marry him, which she refuses to do of course. Gisburne doesn't give up easily though and takes Sarah with him on the back of his horse over protests from her Father who eventually collapses. In the meantime the Sheriff is informed of Gisburne's plan to let the family go and is less than amused. Robin and the rest of the gang (including a well-ish Friar Tuck) stuble upon the Jewish family's abandoned cart and find the two children hiding in a pile of logs. They convince the children that they are friends and they tell Robin and the rest of their escape from Nottingham.
After finding DeTallement still alive, Robin and Nasir decide to go after Gisburne. At the same time, Will has also spotted him riding through Sherwood and to add to his problems, the Sheriff is also hunting Gisburne. All in all Gisburne is due to have a pretty bad day!! Robin and Nasir meet up with Will and he takes them to Gisburne. A short fight follows, but Gisburne looses and has to hand the girl over to Robin. Will also apologises for his action at this point to Robin. All looks to be over when the Sheriff's hunting party stumbles upon the rest of Robin's men who are waiting with the rest of the Jewish family. When Robin, Will and Nasir return they lie low in the bushes and try to figure a way out of this mess.
Some Pitures from this Episode
Robin confronts Gisburne The Sheriff opens the book