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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11097 ***
+
+YOUNG ROBIN HOOD
+
+BY
+
+G. MANVILLE FENN
+
+Author of "The Little Skipper," "Our Soldier Boy," etc.
+
+
+
+
+WITH TWENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+
+Sit still, will you?  I never saw such a boy: wriggling about like
+a young eel."
+
+"I can't help it, David," said the little fellow so roughly spoken
+to by a sour-looking serving man; "the horse does jog so, and it's
+so slippery.  If I didn't keep moving I should go off."
+
+"You'll soon go off if you don't keep a little quieter," growled
+the man angrily, "for I'll pitch you among the bushes."
+
+"No, you won't," said the boy laughing.  "You daren't do so."
+
+"What!  I'll let you see, young master.  I want to know why they
+couldn't let you have a donkey or a mule, instead of hanging you on
+behind me."
+
+"Aunt said I should be safer behind you," said the boy; "but I'm
+not.  It's so hard to hold on by your belt, because you're so----"
+
+"Look here. Master Robin, I get enough o' that from the men.  If
+you say I'm so fat, I'll pitch you into the first patch o' brambles
+we come to."
+
+"But you are fat," said the boy; "and you dare not.  If you did my
+father would punish you."
+
+"He wouldn't know."
+
+"Oh! yes he would, David," said the little fellow, confidently;
+"the other men would tell him."
+
+"They wouldn't know," said the man with a chuckle.  "I say, aren't
+you afraid?"
+
+"No," said the boy.  "What of, tumbling off?  I could jump."
+
+"'Fraid of going through this great dark forest?"
+
+"No.  What is there to be afraid of?"
+
+"Robbers and thieves, and all sorts of horrid things.  Why, we
+might meet Robin Hood and his men."
+
+"I should like that," said the boy.
+
+"What?" cried the serving man, and he looked round at the great oak
+and beech trees through which the faintly marked road lay, and then
+forward and backward at the dozen mules, laden with packs of cloth,
+every two of which were led by an armed man.  "You'd like that?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy.  "I want to see him."
+
+"Here's a pretty sort of a boy," said the man.  "Why, he'd eat you
+like a radish."
+
+"No, he wouldn't," said the boy, "because I'm not a bit like a
+radish; and I say, David, do turn your belt round."
+
+"Turn my belt round?" said the man, in astonishment.  "What for?"
+
+"So as to put the sword the other side. It does keep on banging my
+legs so. They're quite bruised."
+
+"It's me that'll be bruised, with you punching and sticking your
+fisties into my belt.  Put your legs on the other side.  I can't
+move my sword.  I might want it to fight, you know."
+
+"Who with?" asked the boy.
+
+"Robbers after the bales o' cloth.  I shall be precious glad to get
+'em safe to the town, and be back home again with whole bones.  Sit
+still, will you!  Wriggling again!  How am I to get you safe home
+to your father if you keep sidling off like that?  Want me to hand
+you over to one of the men?"
+
+"Yes, please," said the boy, dolefully.
+
+"What?  Don't want to ride on one of the mules, do you?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said the boy.  "I should be more comfortable sitting
+on one of the packs.  I'm sure aunt would have said I was to sit
+there, if she had known."
+
+"Look here, young squire," said the man, sourly; "you've too much
+tongue, and you know too much what aren't good for you.  Your aunt,
+my old missus, says to me:
+
+"'David,' she says, 'you are to take young Master Robin behind you
+on the horse, where he can hold on by your belt, and you'll never
+lose sight of him till you give him into his father the Sheriff's
+hands, along with the bales of cloth; and you can tell the Sheriff
+he has been a very good boy during his visit'; and now I can't."
+
+"Why can't you?" said the boy, sharply.
+
+"'Cause you're doing nothing but squirming and working about behind
+my saddle.  I shall never get you to the town, if you go on like
+this."
+
+The boy puckered up his forehead, and was silent as he wondered
+whether he could manage to sit still for the two hours which were
+yet to elapse before they stopped for the night at a village on the
+outskirts of Sherwood Forest, ready to go on again the next morning.
+
+"I liked stopping with aunt at Ellton," said the little fellow to
+himself, sadly, "and I should like to go again; but I should like
+to be fetched home next time, for old David is so cross every time
+I move, and----"
+
+"Look here, young fellow," growled the man, half turning in his
+saddle; "if you don't sit still I'll get one of the pack ropes and
+tie you on, like a sack.  I never see such a fidgety young elver in
+my----Oh, look at that!"
+
+The man gave a tug at his horse's rein; but it was not needed, for
+the stout cob had cocked its ears forward and stopped short, just
+as the mules in front whisked themselves round, and the men who
+drove them began to huddle together in a group.
+
+For all at once the way was barred by about a dozen men in rough
+weather-stained green jerkins, each with a long bow and a sheaf of
+arrows at his back, and a long quarter-staff in his hand.
+
+David, confidential servant and head man to Aunt Hester, of the
+cloth works at Ellton, looked sharply round at the half-dozen
+heavily-laden mules behind him; and beyond them he saw another
+dozen or so of men, and more were coming from among the trees to
+right and left.
+
+"Hoi! all of you," cried David to his men.  "Swords out!  We must
+fight for the mistress's cloth."
+
+As he spoke, he seized the hilt of his sword and began to tug at
+it; but it would not leave its sheath, and all the while he was
+kicking at his horse's ribs with his heels, with the result that
+the stout cob gave a kick and a plunge, lowered its head, and
+dashed off at a gallop, with David holding on to the pommel.
+
+Two of the men made a snatch at the reins, but they were too late,
+and turned to the mule-drivers, who were following their leader's
+example and trying to escape amongst the trees, leaving the mules
+huddled together, squealing and kicking in their fright.
+
+Young Robin just saw two packages roll to the ground as the cob
+dashed off; then he was holding on with all his might to old
+David's belt as the cob galloped away with half-a-dozen of the
+robbers trying to cut it off.
+
+[Illustration: The stout cob dashed of at a gallop, with David
+holding on to the pommel.]
+
+Then the little fellow felt that he was being jerked and knocked
+and bruised, as the horse tore along with David, head and neck
+stretched out.  There was a rush under some low boughs, and another
+rush over a patch of brambles and tall bracken; then the cob made a
+bold dash at a dense mass of low growth, when there was a violent
+jerk as he made a bound, followed by a feeling as if the boy's arms
+were being torn out at the shoulders, a rush through the air, a
+heavy blow, and a sensation of tearing, and all was, giddiness and
+pain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+It is not nice to be pitched by a man off a horse's back on to the
+top of your head.
+
+That is what young Robin thought as he sat up and rubbed the place,
+looking very rueful and sad.
+
+But he did not seem to be entirely alone there in the dense forest,
+for there was another young robin, with large eyes and a speckled
+jacket, sitting upon a twig and watching him intently.  Robin could
+think of nothing but himself, his aching head, and his scratches,
+some of which were bleeding.
+
+Then he listened, and fancied that he heard shouting, with the
+trampling of mules and the breaking of twigs.
+
+But he was giddy and puzzled, and after struggling through some
+undergrowth he sat down upon what looked like a green velvet
+cushion; but it was only the moss-covered root of a great beech
+tree, which covered him like a roof and made all soft and shady.
+
+And now it was perfectly quiet, and it seemed restful after being
+shaken and jerked about on the horse's back.  Robin was tired too,
+and the dull, half-stupefied state of his brain stopped him from
+being startled by his strange position.  His head ached though, and
+it seemed nice to rest it, and he stretched himself out on the moss
+and looked up through the leaves of the great tree, where he could
+see in one place the ruddy rays of the evening sun glowing, and
+then he could see nothing--think nothing.
+
+Then he could think, though he still could not see, for it was very
+dark and silent and strange, and for some minutes he could not
+understand why he was out there on the moss instead of being in
+Aunt Hester's house at Elton, or at home in Nottingham town.
+
+But he understood it all at once, recollecting what had taken
+place, and for a time he felt very, very miserable.  It was
+startling, too, when from close at hand someone seemed to begin
+questioning him strangely by calling out:
+
+"Whoo-who-who-who?"
+
+But at the end of a minute or two he knew it was an owl, and soon
+after he was fast asleep and did not think again till the sun was
+shining brightly, and he sat up waiting for old David to come and
+pull him up on the horse again.
+
+Robin waited, for he was afraid to move.
+
+"If I begin to wander about," he said to himself, "David will not
+find me, and he will go home and tell father I'm lost, when all the
+time he threw me off the horse because he was afraid and wanted to
+save himself."
+
+So the boy sat still, waiting to be fetched.  The robin came and
+looked at him again, as if wondering that he did not pull up
+flowers by the roots and dig, so that worms and grubs might be
+found, and finally flitted away.
+
+Then all at once there was the pattering of feet, and half-a-dozen
+deer came into sight, with soft dappled coats, and one of them with
+large flat pointed horns; but at the first movement Robin made they
+dashed off among the trees in a series of bounds.
+
+Then there was another long pause, and Robin was thinking how
+hungry he was, when something dropped close to him with a loud rap,
+and looking up sharply, he caught sight of a little keen-eyed
+bushy-tailed animal, looking down from a great branch as if in
+search of something it had let fall.
+
+"Squirrel!" said Robin aloud, and the animal heard and saw him at
+the same moment, showing its annoyance at the presence of an
+intruder directly.  For it began to switch its tail and scold after
+its fashion, loudly, its utterances seeming like a repetition of
+the word "chop" more or less quickly made.
+
+Finding its scolding to be in vain, and that the boy would not go,
+the squirrel did the next best thing--bounded along from bough to
+bough; while, after waiting wearily in the hope of seeing David,
+the boy began to look round this tree and the next, and finally
+made his way some little distance farther into the forest, to be
+startled at last by a harsh cry which was answered from first one
+place and then another by the noisy party of jays that had been
+disturbed in their happy solitude.
+
+To Robin it was just as if the first one had cried "Hoi! I say,
+here's a boy."  And weary with waiting, and hungry as he was, the
+constant harsh shouting irritated the little fellow so that he
+hurried away followed by quite a burst of what seemed to be mocking
+cries, with the intention of finding the track leading across the
+forest; but he had not gone far before he found himself in an open
+glade, dotted with beautiful great oak trees, and nearly covered
+with the broad leaves of the bracken, which were agitated by
+something passing through and beneath, giving forth a grunting
+sound.  Directly after he caught sight of a long black back, then
+of others, and he saw that he was close to a drove of small black
+pigs, hunting for acorns.  One of the pigs found him at the same
+moment and saluted him with a sharp, barking sound wonderfully like
+that of a dog.
+
+This was taken up directly by the other members of the drove, who
+with a great deal of barking and grunting came on to the attack,
+for they did not confine themselves to threatening, their life in
+the forest making them fierce enough to be dangerous.
+
+Robin's first thought was to run away, but he knew that four legs
+are better than two for getting over the ground, and felt that the
+drove would attack him more fiercely if they saw that he was afraid.
+
+His next idea was to climb 'up into the fork of one of the big
+trees, but he knew that there was not time.  So he obeyed his third
+notion, which was to jump to where a big piece of dead wood lay,
+pick it up, and hit the foremost pig across the nose with it.
+
+That blow did wonders; it made the black pig which received it
+utter a dismal squeal, and its companions stop and stand barking
+and snapping all around him.  But the blow broke the piece of dead
+wood in two, and the fierce little animals were coming on again,
+when a voice cried:
+
+"Hi! you! knocking our tigs about!"  And a rough boy about a couple
+of years older than Robin rushed into the middle of the herd,
+kicking first at one and then at another, banging them with a long
+hooked stick he held, and making them run squealing in all
+directions.  "What are you knocking our tigs about for?" cried the
+boy sharply, as he stared hard at the strange visitor to the
+forest, his eyes looking greedily at the little fellow's purple and
+white jerkin and his cap with a little white feather in it.
+
+"They were coming to bite me," said Robin quickly, while it struck
+him as funny that the boy should knock the pigs about himself.
+
+"What are you doing here?" said the boy.
+
+Robin told of his misfortune, and finished by saying:
+
+"I'm so hungry, and I want to go home.  Where can I get some
+breakfast?"
+
+"Dunno," said the boy.  "Have some of these?"
+
+He took a handful of acorns from a dirty satchel, and held them
+out, Robin catching at them eagerly, putting one between his white
+teeth, and biting it, but only to make a face full of disgust.
+
+"It's bitter," he said.  "It's not good to eat."
+
+"Makes our tigs fat," said the boy; "look at 'em."
+
+"But I'm not a pig," said Robin.  "I want some bread and milk.
+Where can I get some?"
+
+The boy shook his head.
+
+"Where do you live?" asked Robin.
+
+"Along o' master."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+The boy shook his head and stared at the cap and feather, one of
+his hands opening and shutting.
+
+"Will you show me the way home, then?"
+
+The boy shook his head again, and now stared at the velvet jerkin,
+then at his own garb, which consisted of a piece of sack with slits
+in it for his head and arms to come through, and a strip of
+cow-skin for a belt to hold it in.
+
+"I could show you where to get something," he said at last.
+
+"Well, show me," cried Robin.
+
+"You give me that jacket and cap, then," cried the boy, in a husky,
+low voice.
+
+"Give you my clothes?" said Robin, wonderingly.  "I can't do that."
+
+"Then I shall take 'em?" said the boy, in a husky growl.
+
+"I'm so hungry," cried Robin.  "Show me where to get something, and
+I'll give you my cap and feather."
+
+"I wants the jacket too," said the boy.
+
+"I tell you I can't give you that," cried Robin.
+
+"Then I means to take it."
+
+Robin shrank away, and the boy turned upon him fiercely.
+
+"None of that," he cried.  "See this here stick?  If you was to try
+to run away I should send it spinning after you, and it would break
+your legs and knock you down, and I could send the tigs after you,
+and they'd soon bring you back."
+
+Robin drew a deep breath; he felt hot, and his hands clenched as he
+longed to strike out at his tyrant.  But the young swineherd was
+big and strong, and the little fellow knew that he could do next to
+nothing against such an enemy.
+
+Then there was a pause.  Robin stood, hot, excited, and panting;
+the herd-boy threw himself down on his chest, rested his chin upon
+his hands, as he stared fiercely at Robin, and kicked his feet up
+and down; while the pigs roamed here and there, nuzzling the fallen
+acorns out from the bracken, and crunching them up loudly.
+
+Robin wanted to run, and he did not want to run, and all at the
+same time, for his strongest desire just then was to fight his
+tyrant; and for some minutes neither spoke.
+
+At last the big boy said, in a low, growling way:
+
+"Now then, are you going to give me them things?"
+
+"No," said Robin, through his set teeth; and again there was
+silence.
+
+"You give 'em to me, and I'll show you the way to where they live
+and they'll give you roast deer and roast pig p'raps, for two of
+ourn's gone.  Master says he counted 'em, and they aren't all
+there, and he wales me with a strap because I let them take the
+pigs, and next time he counts 'em there's more than there was
+before, but he's whipped me all the same.  You give me them things,
+and I'll take you where you'll get lots to eat, and milk and eggs
+and apples.  D'yer hear?"
+
+"I won't give them to you.  I can't--I mustn't," cried Robin
+passionately.
+
+The boy said nothing, but looked away at his pigs, two of which
+were fighting.
+
+"Ah, would you?" he cried; and he made believe to rush at them with
+his big hook-handled stick.
+
+Robin was thrown off his guard, and before he was aware of it the
+boy made a side leap and, dropping his stick, seized him, threw him
+over on his back, and sat astride upon his chest.
+
+"Now won't you give em to me?" cried the herd-boy; and he whipped
+off the cap and threw it to a little distance, with the result that
+half a dozen pigs rushed at it; and as he made a brave fight to get
+rid of his enemy, the last that Robin saw of his velvet cap and
+plume was that one black pig tore out the feather, while another
+was champing the velvet in his mouth.
+
+It was a brave fight, but all in vain, and a few minutes later the
+boy was standing triumphantly over poor Robin, with the gay jerkin
+rolled up under his arm; and the little fellow struggled to his
+feet in his trunk hose and white linen shirt, hot, angry, and torn,
+and wishing with all his might that he were as big and strong as
+the tyrant who had mastered him.
+
+"I told yer I would," said the young ruffian, with a grin.  "You
+should ha' given 'em to me at first, and then I shouldn't have hurt
+yer.  Come on; I'll show yer now where yer can get something to
+eat."
+
+In his anger and shame Robin felt that he wanted no food now, only
+to go and hide himself away among the trees; but his enemy's next
+words had their effect.
+
+"You didn't want this here," he said.  "You've got plenty on you
+now.  Better nor I have.  There, go straight on there, and I'll
+show yer.  D'yer hear?"
+
+"I don't want to go now," said Robin fiercely.
+
+"Oh, don't yer?  Then I do.  You're agoing afore I makes yer, and
+when they've give yer a lot, you're going to eat part and bring
+some to me so's I can help eat the rest.  You bring a lot, mind,
+'cause I can eat ever so much.  Now then, go on."
+
+"I can't--I don't want to," cried Robin.  "You go first."
+
+"What, and master come, p'raps, and find me gone!  Likely! he'd
+give me the strap again. There, get on."
+
+Robin winced, for the young ruffian picked up his stick and poked
+him as he would one of his pigs.  But the little fellow could not
+help himself, and he went on in the required direction among the
+trees, the forest growing darker and darker, till suddenly voices
+were heard, and the boy stopped,
+
+"You go straight along there," he said, "and I'll wait."
+
+"No, you go," said Robin.  "You know them."
+
+"Oh! yes, and them want some more pigs!  Want me to be leathered
+again?"
+
+Robin said "No," but he felt all the time that he should like to
+see the young tyrant flogged and forced to return the folded up
+doublet; and he thought sadly of his spoiled and lost cap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"Now then, don't you be long," cried the young swineherd, and he
+raised his stick threateningly, and made another thrust at Robin,
+which was avoided; and feeling desperate now as well as hungry,
+feeling too, that it would be better to fall into any other hands,
+the little fellow ran on, following a faint track in and out among
+the trees, till he came suddenly into an opening, face to face with
+a group of fifty or sixty people busily engaged around a heap
+beneath a spreading beech tree.
+
+Robin's first act was to stand and stare, for the heap consisted of
+bales similar to those with which he had seen the mules laden a
+couple of days back, and tied up together a few yards away were the
+very mules, while the little crowd of men who were busy bore a very
+strong resemblance to those by whom the attack was made on the
+previous day.
+
+Robin knew nothing in those days about the old proverb of jumping
+out of the frying-pan into the fire, but he felt something of the
+kind as he found himself face to face with the marauders who had
+seized upon the bales of cloth and put his aunt's servants to
+flight, and without a moment's hesitation he turned and began to
+hurry back, but ran into the arms of a huge fellow who caught him
+up as if he had been a baby.
+
+[Illustration: Robin ran into the arms of a huge fellow, who caught
+him up as if he had been a baby.]
+
+"Hullo, giant!" cried the big man, "who are you?"  And the party of
+men with him, armed with long bows and arrows, began to laugh
+merrily.
+
+"Let me go--let me go!" cried the boy, struggling angrily.
+
+"Steady, steady, my little Cock Robin," said the man, in his big
+bluff way; "don't fight, or you'll ruffle your feathers."
+
+The boy ceased struggling directly.
+
+"How did you know my name was Robin?" he said.
+
+"Guessed it, little one.  There, I shan't hurt you.  Where do you
+come from?"
+
+"Ellton," said the boy.
+
+"But what are you doing here in the forest?"
+
+"You came and fought David, and frightened him and the men away,
+and those are our mules and the cloth."
+
+Robin stopped short, for the big man broke out into a loud whistle,
+and then laughed.
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said; "and so your name's Robin, is it?"
+
+The little fellow nodded.  "Yes," he said.  "What's yours?"
+
+"John," said the great fellow, laughing heartily; "and they call me
+little because I'm so big.  What do you think of that?"
+
+"I think it's very stupid," said the boy.  "I thought you must be
+Robin Hood."
+
+"Then you thought wrong. But if you thought that this one was you
+would be right.  Here he comes."  The boy looked in wonder at a
+tall man who looked short beside Little John, as he came up in coat
+of green with brown belt, a sword by his side, quiver of arrows
+hung on his back, and longbow in his hand.
+
+"What woodland bird have you got here, John?" he said.  And the boy
+saw that he smiled pleasantly and did not look fierce or
+threatening.
+
+"A young Robin," said the big fellow; "part of yesterday's plunder."
+
+"I want to find my way home," said the boy.  "Will you please show
+me?"
+
+"But you did not come here into the forest in shirt and hose, did
+you, my little man?" said the great outlaw.
+
+"No; someone took my cap and doublet away, sir."
+
+Robin Hood frowned.
+
+"Who was it?" he cried angrily.  "Find out, John, and he shall have
+a bowstring about his back.  Point out the man who stripped you, my
+little lad," he continued, turning to the boy.
+
+"It wasn't a man," said the little fellow, "but a boy who minds
+pigs."
+
+"What, a young swineherd!" cried the outlaw, laughing.  "Why did
+you let him?  Why didn't you fight for your clothes like a man?"
+
+"I did," said young Robin stoutly; "but he was so big, he knocked
+me down and sat upon me."
+
+"Oh! that makes all the difference.  How big was he--big as this
+man?"
+
+Young Robin glanced at the giant who had caught him, and shook his
+head.
+
+"No," he said; "not half, so big as he is.  But he was stronger
+than I am."
+
+"So I suppose. Well, bring him along. Little John, and let's see if
+the women can find him some clothes and a cap.  You would like
+something more to wear, wouldn't you?"
+
+"I should like something to eat,"' said the boy sadly.  "I have not
+had anything since breakfast."
+
+"That's not so very long," said Robin Hood. "We have not had
+anything since breakfast."
+
+"But I mean since breakfast yesterday," said young Robin piteously.
+
+"What!" cried Little John. "Why, the poor boy's starved.  But we
+can soon mend that.  Come here!"
+
+Young Robin's first movement was to shrink from the big fellow, but
+he smiled down in such a bluff, amiable way, that the boy gave him
+his hands, and in an instant he was swung up and sitting six feet
+in the air upon the great fellow's shoulder, and then rode off to
+an open-fronted shed-like place thatched with reeds, Robin Hood,
+with his bow over his shoulder, walking by the side.
+
+"Here, Marian," cried the outlaw, and young Robin's heart gave a
+throb and he made a movement to get down to go to the sweet-faced
+woman who came hurriedly out, wide-eyed and wondering, in her green
+kirtle, her long soft naturally curling hair rippling down her
+back, but confined round her brow by a plain silver band in which a
+few woodland flowers were placed.
+
+"Oh! Robin," she cried, flushing with pleasure; "who is this?"
+
+"It is some one for you to take care of," said the outlaw, who
+smiled at the bright look in the girl's face.  "He is both hungry
+and tired, and his people ran away and left him alone in the
+forest."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" she cried, as Little John lightly jumped the boy
+down at her feet.  "Come along."
+
+Young Robin put his hand in hers and gave her a look full of trust
+and confidence, before turning to the two men, for all his troubles
+seemed over now.
+
+"Thank you for bringing me here," he said; "but are you bold Robin
+Hood and Little John, of whom I've heard my father talk?"
+
+"I daresay we are the men he has talked about," said the outlaw
+smiling; "but who is your father, and what did he say?"
+
+"My father is the Sheriff of Nottingham," said the boy, "and he
+said that he was going to catch you and your men some day, for you
+were very wicked and bad.  But he did not know how good and kind
+you are, and I shall tell him when you send me home."
+
+The two men exchanged glances with Maid Marian.
+
+"We shall see," said the outlaw; "but you are nearly starved,
+aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, very, very hungry," said the boy, looking piteously at his
+new protector, whose hand he held.
+
+"Hungry?" she cried.
+
+"Yes, he has had nothing since yesterday morning; but you can cure
+that."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried the woman.  And she hurried young
+Robin beneath the shelter, and in a very short time he was smiling
+up in her face in his thankfulness, for she had placed before him a
+bowl of sweet new milk and some of the nicest bread he had ever
+tasted.
+
+As he ate hungrily he had to answer Maid Marian's questions about
+who he was and how he came there, which he did readily, and it did
+not strike him as being very dreadful that the mules and their
+loads had been seized, for old David had been very cross and severe
+with him for getting tired, and these people in the forest were
+most kind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+It was a very strange life for a boy who had been accustomed to
+every comfort, but young Robin enjoyed it, for everything seemed to
+be so new and fresh, and the men treated him as if he had come to
+them for the purpose of being made into a pet.
+
+They were, of course, fierce outlaws and robbers, ready to turn
+their bows and swords against anyone; but the poor people who lived
+in and about the forest liked and helped them, for Robin Hood's men
+never did them harm, while as to young Robin, they were all eager
+to take him out with them and show him the wonders of the forest.
+
+On the second day after his arrival in the camp, the boy asked when
+he was to be shown the way home, and he asked again on the third
+day, but only to be told each time that he should go soon.
+
+On the fourth day he forgot to ask, for he was busy with big Little
+John, who smiled with satisfaction when young Robin chose to stay
+with him instead of going with some of the men into the forest
+after a deer.
+
+Young Robin forgot to ask when he was to be shown the way home,
+because Little John had promised to make him a bow and arrows and
+to teach him how to use them.  The great tall outlaw kept his word
+too, and long before evening he hung a cap upon a broken bough of
+an oak tree and set young Robin to work about twenty yards away
+shooting arrows at the mark.
+
+"You've got to hit that every time you shoot," said Little John;
+"and when you can do that at twenty yards you have got to do it at
+forty.  Now begin."
+
+For the bow was ready and made of a piece of yew, and half a dozen
+arrows had been finished.
+
+"Think you can hit it?" said Little John, after showing the boy how
+to string his bow and fit the notch of the arrow to the string.
+
+"Oh! yes," said Robin confidently.
+
+"That's right! then you will soon be able to kill a deer."
+
+"But I don't want to kill a deer," said the boy.  "I want to see
+some, but I shouldn't like to kill one."
+
+"Wait till you're hungry, my fine fellow," said Little John,
+laughing.  "But my word! you look fine this morning; just like one
+of us.  Did Maid Marian make you that green jerkin?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy.
+
+"That's right; so's your cap and feather.  But now then, try if you
+can hit the cap.  Draw the arrow right to the head before you let
+it go.  My word, what funny little fumbling fingers yours are!"
+
+"Are they?" cried Robin, who thought that his teacher's hands were
+the biggest he had ever seen.
+
+"Like babies' fingers," said Little John, smiling down at the boy
+as if very much amused.  "Now then, draw right to the head."
+
+"I can't," said the boy; "it's so hard."
+
+"That's because you are not used to it, little one.  Try again.
+Hold tight, and pull hard.  Steadily.  That's the way.  Now loose
+it and let it go."
+
+Young Robin did as he was told, and away went the arrow down
+between the trees, to fall with its feathered wings just showing
+above the fallen leaves.
+
+"That didn't hit the cap," said Little John.  "Never went near."
+
+Young Robin shook his head.
+
+"Did you look at the cap when you loosed the arrow?"
+
+"No," said Robin; "I shut my eyes."
+
+"Try again then, and keep them open."
+
+Robin tried and tried again till he had sent off all six of his
+shafts, and then he stood and looked up at Little John, and Little
+John looked down at him.
+
+"You couldn't kill a deer for dinner to-day," said the big fellow.
+
+"No," said young Robin; "it's so hard.  Could you have hit it?"
+
+"I think I could if I stood ten times as far away," said the great
+fellow quietly.
+
+"Oh, do try, please," cried Robin.
+
+"Very well; only let's pick up your arrows first, or we may lose
+some of them.  Always pick up your arrows while they are fresh--I
+mean, while you can remember where they are."
+
+The shafts were picked up, mostly by Little John, whose eyes were
+very sharp at seeing where the little arrows lay; and then they
+walked back, and Robin had to run by his big companion's side, for
+he began to stride away, counting as he went, till he had taken two
+hundred steps from the tree all along one of the alleys of the
+forest, when he stopped short.
+
+"Now then, my little bowman," he said; "think I can hit the mark
+now?"
+
+"No," said Robin decisively; "we're too far away.  I can hardly see
+the cap."
+
+"Well, let's try," said Little John, stringing his bow, and then
+carefully selecting an arrow from the quiver at his back.  This
+arrow he drew two or three times through his hand so as to smooth
+the feathering and make the web lie straight, before fitting the
+notch to the string.
+
+"So you think it's too far?" said Little John.
+
+"Yes, ever so much."
+
+"Ah, well, we'll try," said the big fellow coolly.  "Where-about
+shall I hit the cap--in the middle?"
+
+[Illustration: "Ah, well, we'll try," said Little John.
+"Whereabouts shall I hit the cap?"]
+
+"No," said Robin; "just at the top of the brim."
+
+"Very well," said the big fellow, standing up very straight and
+rather sidewise, as he held his bow at his left arm's length,
+slowly drew the arrow to the head, and then as Robin gazed in the
+direction of the indistinctly seen hat hanging on the tree-trunk--
+
+Twang!
+
+The arrow had been loosed, and the bow had given forth a strange
+deep musical sound.
+
+Robin looked sharply at Little John, and the big outlaw looked down
+at him.
+
+"Where did that arrow go?" said the boy.
+
+"Let's see," said Little John.
+
+"I don't think we shall ever find it again," continued Robin.
+
+They walked back, the outlaw very slowly, and Robin quite fast so
+as to keep up with him.
+
+"Perhaps not," said Little John, "but I don't often lose my arrows."
+
+"This one has gone right through the ferns," thought Robin, and he
+felt glad with the thought of the big fellow having missed the
+mark, but as they walked nearer, he kept his eyes fixed upon the
+great trunk dimly seen in the shade, being tripped up twice by the
+bracken fronds; but he saved himself from a fall and watched the
+tree trunk still, while the hat hanging on the old bough grew
+plainer, just as it had been before.
+
+They had walked back nearly three parts of the way when Robin
+suddenly saw something which made him start, for there was a tiny
+bit of something white above something dark, and those marks were
+not on the brim of the hat before.
+
+The next minute Robin's eyes began to open wider, for he knew that
+he was looking at the feathered end of the arrow, pointing straight
+at him; and directly after, as he stepped a little on one side to
+avoid an ant-hill, he could see the whole of the arrow except the
+point, which had passed through the brim of the hat.
+
+"Why, you hit it!" he cried excitedly.
+
+"Well, that's what I tried to do," said Little John.
+
+"But you hit it just in the place I said."
+
+"Yes, you told me to," said Little John, smiling.  "That's how you
+must learn to shoot when you grow up to be a man."
+
+Young Robin said nothing, but stood rubbing one ear very gently,
+and staring at the hat.
+
+"Well," said Little John, smiling down at his companion, "what are
+you thinking about?"
+
+"I was thinking that it is very wonderful for you to stand so far
+off and shoot like that."
+
+"Were you, now?" said Little John.  "Well, it is not wonderful at
+all.  If you keep on trying for years you will be able to do it
+quite as well.  I'll teach you.  Shall I?"
+
+"I should like you to," said Robin, shaking his head; "but I can't
+stop here.  I must go home to my father."
+
+"Oh! must you?" said Little John.  "Go home to your father and
+mother, eh?"
+
+Robin shook his head.
+
+"No," he said; "my mother's dead, and I live sometimes with father
+and sometimes with aunt.  I am going home to father now, as soon as
+you show me the way.  When are you going to show me?"
+
+Little John screwed up his face till it was full of wrinkles.
+"Ah," he said, "I don't know.  You must ask the captain."
+
+"Who is the captain?" said the boy.
+
+"Eh?  Why, Robin Hood, of course.  But I wouldn't ask him just yet."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Eh?  Why not?  Because it might be awkward.  You see, it's a long
+way, and you couldn't go by yourself."
+
+"Well, you could show me," said young Robin.  "You would, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I would if I could," said Little John; "but I'm afraid I couldn't."
+
+"Oh! you could, I'm sure," said young Robin.  "You're so big."
+
+"Oh! yes, I'm big enough," said Little John, laughing; "but if I
+were to take you home your father would not let me come back again;
+and besides, the captain would not let me go for fear that I should
+be killed."
+
+"Killed?" said the boy, staring at his big companion.
+
+"Why, who would kill you?"
+
+"Your father, perhaps."
+
+"What, for being kind to me?"
+
+"I can't explain all these things to you, mite.  Here's someone
+coming.  Let's ask him.  Hi!  Captain!  Young squire wants me to
+take him home."
+
+Robin Hood, who had just caught sight of the pair and come up,
+smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Not yet, little one," he said.  "I can't spare big Little John.
+Why, aren't you happy here in the merry greenwood under the trees?
+I thought you liked us."
+
+"So I do," said young Robin, "and I should like to stay ever so
+long and watch the deer and the birds, and learn to shoot with my
+bow and arrows."
+
+"That's right.  Well said, little one," cried Robin Hood, patting
+the boy on the head.
+
+"But I'm afraid that my father will be very cross if I don't try to
+go home."
+
+"Then try and make yourself happy, my boy," said Robin Hood, "for
+you have tried hard to go home, and you cannot go."
+
+"Why?" said young Robin.
+
+"For a dozen reasons," said the outlaw, smiling.  "Here are some:
+you could not find your way; you would starve to death in the
+forest; you might meet people who would behave worse to you than
+the young swineherd, or encounter wild beasts; then, biggest reason
+of all: I will not let you go."
+
+Young Robin was silent for a moment or two, and then he said
+quickly:
+
+"You might tell Little John to take me home.  My father would be so
+glad to see him."
+
+Robin Hood and the big fellow just named looked at one another and
+laughed.
+
+"Yes," said Robin Hood, patting the boy on the shoulder, "now
+that's just it.  Your father, the Sheriff, would be so glad to see
+Little John that he would keep him altogether; and I can't spare
+him."
+
+"I don't think my father would be so unkind," said Robin.
+
+"But I am sure he would, little man," said the outlaw.  "He'd be so
+glad to get him that he would spoil him.  Eh, John?  What do you
+think?"
+
+"Ay, that he would," said Little John, shaking his head.  "He'd be
+sure to spoil me.  He'd cut me shorter, perhaps, or else hang me up
+for an ornament.  No, my little man, I couldn't take you home."
+
+"There," said the outlaw, smiling; "you must wait, my boy. Try and
+be contented as you are.  Maid Marian's very kind to you, is she
+not?"
+
+"Oh! yes," cried the boy, with his face lighting up, "and that's
+why I don't want to go."
+
+"Hullo!" growled Little John.  "Why, you said just now that you did
+want to go!" "Did I?" said the boy thoughtfully.
+
+"To be sure you did.  What do you mean."
+
+"I mean," said the boy, looking wistfully from one to the other,
+"that I feel as if I ought to go home, but I think I should like to
+stay."
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Little John, taking off and waving his hat.  "Hear
+that, captain?  You've got another to add to your merry men.  Young
+Robin and I make a capital pair.  Come along, youngster, and let's
+practise shooting at the mark, and then we'll make enough arrows to
+fill your quiver."
+
+Five minutes later young Robin was standing as he had been placed
+by his big companion, who sat down and watched him while he
+sturdily drew the notch of his arrow right to his ear, and then
+loosed the whizzing shaft to go flying away through the woodland
+shade, while Little John shouted as gleefully as some big boy.
+
+"Hurrah!  Well done, little one!  There it is, sticking in yonder
+tree."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"As far as you like, Robin," said the outlaw, "only you must be
+wise.  Don't go far enough to lose your way.  Learn the forest by
+degrees.  Some day you will not be able to lose yourself."
+
+"But suppose I did lose myself," said the boy; "what then?"
+
+"I should have to tell Little John to bring all my merry men to
+look for you, and Maid Marian here would sit at home and cry till
+you were found."
+
+"Then I will not lose myself," said Robin.  And he always
+remembered his promise when he took his bow and arrows and, with
+his sword hanging from his belt, went away from the outlaws' camp
+for a long ramble.
+
+His bow was just as high as he was himself, that being the rule in
+archery, and his arrows, beautifully made by Little John, were just
+half the length of his bow.
+
+As to his sword, that was a dagger in a green shark-skin sheath
+given to him by Robin Hood, who said rightly enough that it was
+quite big enough for him.
+
+Maid Marian found a suitable buckle for the belt, one which Little
+John cut out of a very soft piece of deer-skin, the same skin
+forming the cross-belt which went over the boy's shoulder and
+supported his horn.
+
+For he was supplied with a horn as well, this being necessary in
+the forest, and Robin Hood himself taught him in the evenings how
+to blow the calls by fitting his lips to the mouthpiece and
+altering the tone by placing his hand inside the silver rim which
+formed the mouth.
+
+It was not easy, but the little fellow soon learned.  All the same,
+though, he made some strange sounds at first, bad enough, Little
+John declared, to give one of Maid Marian's cows the tooth-ache,
+and frighten the herds of deer farther and farther away.
+
+That was only at the first, for young Robin very soon became quite
+a woodman, learning fast to sound his horn, to shoot and hit his
+mark, and to find his way through the great wilderness of open
+moorland and shady trees.
+
+But it was more than once that he lost his way, for the trees and
+beaten tracks were so much alike and all was so beautiful that it
+was easy to wander on and forget all about finding the way back
+through the sun-dappled shades.
+
+And so it happened that one morning when the outlaw band had gone
+off hunting, to bring back a couple of fat deer for Robin Hood's
+larder, young Robin started by himself, bow in hand, down one of
+the lovely beech glades, and had soon gone farther than he had been
+before.
+
+The squirrels dropped the beech mast and dashed away through the
+trees, to chop and scold at him; the rabbits started from out of
+the ferns and raced away fast, showing the under part of their
+white cotton tails, before they plunged into their shady burrows;
+and twice over, as the boy softly passed out of the shade into some
+sunny opening, he came upon little groups of deer--beautiful
+large-eyed thin-legged does, with their fawns--grazing peacefully
+on the soft grass which grew in patches between the tufts of golden
+prickly furze, for they were safe enough, the huntsmen being gone
+in search of the lordly bucks, with their tall flattened horns if
+they were fallow deer, small, round, and sharply pointed if they
+were roes.
+
+There was always something fresh to see, and he who went slowly and
+softly through the forest saw most.  At such times as this young
+Robin would stop short to watch the grazing deer and fawns with
+their softly dappled hides, till all at once a pair of sharp blue
+eyes would spy him out, and the jay who owned those eyes would set
+up his soft speckled crest, show his fierce black moustachios, and
+shout an alarm again in a harsh voice--"Here's a boy! here's a
+boy!" and the does would leave off eating, throw up their heads,
+and away the little herd would go, nip--nip--nip, in a series of
+bounds, just as if their thin legs were so many springs, their
+black hoofs coming down close together and just touching the short
+elastic grass, which seemed to send them off again.
+
+"I wish they wouldn't be afraid of me," young Robin said.  "I
+shouldn't hurt them."
+
+But the does and fawns did not know that, for as Robin said this he
+was fitting an arrow to his bow-string, and threatening to send it
+flying after the shrieking jay which had given the alarm.  He
+forgot, too, that he had eaten heartily of delicious roasted fawn
+only a few days before.
+
+As he wandered on through glades where the sun seemed to send rays
+of glowing silver down through the oak or beech leaves as if to
+fill the golden cups which grew beneath them among the soft green
+moss, he would come out suddenly perhaps on one of the sunny forest
+pools, perhaps where the water was half covered with broad flat
+leaves, among which were silver blossoms, in other places golden,
+with arrow weed at the sides, along with whispering reeds and
+sword-shaped iris plants.  There beneath the floating leaves great
+golden-sided carp and tench floated, and sometimes a fierce-eyed
+green-splashed pike, while over all flitted and darted upon gauzy
+wings beautiful dragon-flies, chasing the tiny gnats--blue, brown,
+golden, and golden-green--and now and then encountering and making
+their wings rustle as they touched in rapid flight.  Then as he
+stood with his hand resting against a tree trunk, peering forward,
+a curious little head with bright crimson eyes divided the sedge or
+reeds growing in the water, its owner looking out to see if there
+was any danger; and as it looked, Robin could see that the bird's
+beak seemed to be continued right up into a fiat red plate between
+its eyes.
+
+[Illustration: Robin stood with his hand resting against a tree
+trunk.]
+
+Then it came sailing out, swimming by means of its long thin legs
+and toes, coming right into the opening, looking of a dark shiny
+brownish green, all but its stunted tail, the under part of which
+was pure white, with a black band across.
+
+Little John told him afterwards that it was a moor-hen, even if it
+was a cock bird.  It was, not this which took so much of Robin's
+attention, but the seven or eight little dark balls which followed
+it out along one of the lanes of open water, swimming here and
+there and making dabs with their little beaks at the insects
+gliding about the top.
+
+It was so quiet and seemed so safe that directly after the reeds
+parted again and another bird swam out from among the sheltering
+reeds.  Robin knew this directly as a drake, but he had never
+before seen one with such a gloriously green head, rich
+chestnut-colored breast, soft gray back, or glistening metallic
+purple wing spots.
+
+Robin could have sent a sharp-pointed arrow at this beautiful bird,
+and perhaps have killed it, for he knew well that roast duck or
+drake is very nice stuffed with sage and onions, and with green
+peas to eat therewith; but he never thought of using his bow, and
+he was content to feast his eyes upon the bird's beauty and watch
+its motions.
+
+The drake took no notice of the moor-hen and her dusky dabs, but
+swam right out in the middle, seemed to stand up on the water,
+stretching out his neck and flapping his wings so sharply that
+something right on the other side moved suddenly, and Robin saw
+that there was another bird which he had not seen before--a
+long-necked, long-legged, loose-feathered gray creature with sharp
+eyes and a thin beak, standing in the water and staring eagerly at
+the drake as much as to say:
+
+"What's the matter there?" while he uttered aloud the one enquiring
+cry--
+
+"Quaik?"
+
+"Wirk--wirk--wirk!" said the drake.
+
+"Quack, quack, quack, quack!" came from out of the reeds, and a
+brown duck came sailing out, followed by ten little yellow balls of
+down with flat beaks, swimming like their mother, but in a hurried
+pop-and-go-one fashion, in and out, and round and round, and
+seeming to go through country dances on the water in chase of water
+beetles and running spiders or flies, while the duck kept on
+uttering a warning quack, and the drake, who, first with one eye
+and then with the other, kept a sharp look up in the sky for
+falcons and hawks, now and then muttered out a satisfied
+"Wirk--wirk--wirk!"
+
+Robin was Just thinking how beautiful it all was, when the danger
+for which the drake was watching in the sky suddenly came from the
+water beneath.
+
+One of the downy yellow dabs had swum two yards away from the
+others and his mother, after a daddy long-legs which had flown down
+on to the surface of the water, and had opened its little flat beak
+to seize it, when there was a whirl in the water, a rush and
+splash, and two great jaws armed with sharp teeth closed over the
+duckling, which was visible one moment, gone the next, and Robin
+drew an arrow out to fit to his bow-string.
+
+But he was too late to send it whizzing at the great pike, which
+had given a whisk with its tail and gone off to some lair in the
+reeds to peacefully swallow the young duck, while the rest followed
+their quacking father and mother back to the shelter of the reeds,
+rushes, and sedge, where the moor-hen and her brood were already
+safe, while, startled by the alarm, the heron bent down as it
+spread its great gray wing's, sprang up, gave a few flaps and
+flops, and began to sail round above the pool till it grew peaceful
+again, when, stretching out its legs, the heron dropped back into
+the water, stood motionless gazing down with meditative eyes as if
+quite satisfied that no fish would touch it, and then, _flick_!
+
+It had taken place so rapidly that Robin hardly saw the movement,
+but certainly the heron's beak was darted in amongst the bottoms of
+the reeds where they grew out of the water, and directly afterwards
+the bird straightened itself again, to stand up with a kicking
+green frog in its scissor-shaped beak.
+
+Then there was a jerk or two, which altered the frog's position,
+and the beak from being only a little way open was shut quite
+close, and a knob appeared in the heron's long neck, went slowly
+lower and lower, and then disappeared altogether.
+
+Then the heron shuffled its wings a little as if to put the
+feathers quite straight, said "_Phenk_" loudly twice over, and shut
+one eye.
+
+For the bird had partaken of a satisfactory dinner, and was
+thinking about it, while young Robin sighed and thought it seemed
+very dreadful; but the next moment he was watching a streak of
+blue, which was a kingfisher with a tiny silver fish in its beak,
+and thinking he was beginning to feel hungry himself.
+
+So he left the side of the pool with another sigh, the noise he
+made sending off the great gray heron, and after a little
+difficulty he found his way back to the outlaws' camp and his own
+dinner, which, oddly enough, was not roast buck or fawn, but roast
+ducks and a fine baked pike, cooked in an earthen oven, with plenty
+of stuffing.
+
+Then, being hungry, young Robin partook of his own meal, and forgot
+all about what he had seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+It was all very wonderful to young Robin when he saw Little John or
+one of the other men let fly an arrow with a twang of the
+bow-string and a sharp whizz of the wings through the air, to
+quiver in a mark eighty or a hundred yards away, or to pierce some
+flying wild goose or duck passing in a flock high in air; but by
+degrees that which had seemed so marvellous soon ceased to astonish
+him, and at last looked quite easy.
+
+For Robin was delighted with his bow and arrows as soon as he found
+that he could send one of the light-winged shafts whistling in a
+beautiful curve to stick in some big tree.
+
+Then he began shooting at smaller trees, and then at saplings when
+he could hit the small trees.  But the saplings were, of course,
+much more difficult.  One day though, he went back to Little John
+in triumph to tell him that he had shot at a young oak about as
+thick as his wrist.
+
+"But you didn't hit it?" said the big fellow, smiling.
+
+"I just scratched one side of it though," cried the boy.
+
+"Did you now?  Well done!  You keep on trying, and you'll beat me
+some day."
+
+"I don't think I shall," said Robin, shaking his head thoughtfully.
+
+"Oh! but you will if you keep on trying.  A lad who tries hard can
+do nearly anything."
+
+"Can he?" said Robin.
+
+"To be sure he can; so you try, and when you can hit anything you
+shoot at you'll be half a man.  And when you've done growing you'll
+be one quite."
+
+"Shall I ever be as big as you?" asked Robin.
+
+"I hope not," said Little John, laughing.  "I'm too big."
+
+"Are you?" said Robin.  "I should like to be as big as you."
+
+"No, no, don't," cried Little John. "You go on growing till you're
+a six-footer, and then you stop.  All that grows after that's waste
+o' good stuff, and gets in your way.  Big uns like me are always
+knocking their heads against something."
+
+"But how am I to know when I'm six feet high?" said Robin.
+
+"Oh! I'll tell you, I'll keep measuring you, my lad."
+
+"And how am I to stop growing?"
+
+Little John took off his cap and scratched his head, as he wrinkled
+up his big, good-humored face.
+
+"Well, I don't quite know," he said; "but there's plenty o' time
+yet, and we shall see.  Might put a big stone in your hat; or keep
+you in a very dry place; or tie your shoulders down to your
+waist--no, that wouldn't do."
+
+"Why?" said Robin promptly.
+
+"Because it wouldn't stop your legs growing, and it's boys' legs
+that grow the most when they're young.  I say, though, what's
+become of all those arrows I made you?"
+
+"Shot them away."
+
+"And only two left.  You mustn't waste arrows like that.  Why
+didn't you look for them after you shot?"
+
+"I did," cried Robin, "but they will hide themselves so.  They
+creep right under the grass and among the weeds so that you can't
+find them again.  But you'll make me some more, won't you?"
+
+"Well," said Little John, "I suppose I must; but you will have to
+be more careful, young un.  I can't spend all my time making new
+arrows for you.  But there, I want you to shoot so that the captain
+will be proud of you, and some day you'll have to shoot a deer."
+
+"I don't think I should like to shoot a deer," said the boy,
+shaking his head.
+
+"Why not?"  They're good to eat."
+
+"They look so nice and kind, with their big soft eyes."
+
+"Well, a man then."
+
+"Oh, no!  I shouldn't like to shoot a man."
+
+"What not one of the captain's enemies who had come to kill him?"
+
+"I don't think I should mind so much then.  Look here, Little John,
+I'd shoot an arrow into his back, to prick him and make him run
+away."
+
+"And so you shall, my lad," cried Little John, and he set to work
+directly to cut some wood for arrows to refill the boy's quiver;
+and when those were lost, he made some more, for young Robin was
+always shooting and losing them; but Little John said it did not
+matter, for he was going to be a famous marksman, and the big
+fellow looked as proud of his pupil as could be.
+
+But Little John did not stop at teaching young Robin to shoot, for
+one day the boy found him smoothing and scraping a nice new piece
+of ash as thick as his little finger, which was not little at all.
+
+"You don't know what this is for," said the big fellow.
+
+"It looks like a little quarter-staff," said young Robin, "like all
+the men have."
+
+"Well done.  Guessed it first time. Now guess who it is for?"
+
+"Me," said the boy promptly.  And so it was, and what was more,
+Little John, in the days which followed, taught him how to handle
+it so as to give blows and guard himself, till the little fellow
+became as clever and active as could be, making the men roar with
+laughter when in a bout he managed to strike so quickly that his
+staff struck leg or arm before his opponent could guard.
+
+"Why, you're getting quite a forester, Robin," said the captain,
+smiling, "and what with your skill with bow and quarter-staff
+you'll soon be able to hold your own."
+
+Robin Hood's words were put to the proof in autumn, for one day
+when the acorns had swollen to such a size that they could no
+longer sit in their cups, and came rattling down from the sunny
+side of the great oak-trees, young Robin was having a glorious
+ramble.  He had filled his satchel with brown hazel nuts, had a
+good feast of blackberries, and stained his fingers.  He had had a
+long talk to a tame fawn which knew him and came when he whistled,
+and tempted a couple of squirrels down with some very brown nuts,
+laying them upon the bark of a fallen tree, and then drawing back a
+few yards, with the result that the bushy-tailed little animals
+crept softly down, nearer and nearer, ending by making a rush,
+seizing the nuts, and darting back to the security of a high branch
+of a tree.
+
+"I shouldn't hurt you," said Robin, as he stood leaning upon his
+little quarter-staff, watching them nibble away the ends of the
+nuts to get at the sweet kernel.  "If I wanted to I could unsling
+my bow, string it, and bring you down with an arrow; but I don't
+want to.  Why can't you both be as tame as my fawn?"
+
+The squirrels made no answer, but went on nibbling the nuts, and
+suddenly darted up higher in the tree, while Robin grew so much
+interested in the movements of the active little creatures that he
+heard no sound behind him, nor did he awaken to the fact that he
+was being stalked by some one creeping bare-footed from tree to
+tree to get within springing distance, till all at once he felt the
+whole weight of something alighting on his back and driving him
+forward so that he dropped his quarter-staff and came down on hands
+and knees.
+
+"Got yer, have I, at last?" cried a familiar voice, as he felt his
+ribs nipped, his assailant having seated himself on his back.
+"Didn't I tell yer I'd wait, and you was to bring me back a lot to
+eat?"
+
+Young Robin waited for no more, but in his agony of spirit he gave
+himself a wrench sidewise, dislodging his rider, and made an effort
+to struggle up again.
+
+But his old enemy held fast, and after a sharp struggle Robin stood
+panting, face to face with the young swineherd, who had him tightly
+by the doublet with both hands.
+
+"You let go," cried young Robin fiercely.  "You'll tear my coat."
+
+"I means to tear it right off dreckly," said the boy, grinning.  "I
+want a noo un again, and it'll just do.  I'm a-going to have them
+bow and arrows too, and the knife and cap, I'll let you see!  Going
+and hiding away all this time, when I told yer to come back!"
+
+"You let me go," panted Robin, looking vainly round for help.
+
+"Nay, there aren't no one a-nigh, and I've got yer fast.  Why
+didn't yer come back as I told you?"
+
+"I didn't want to," said Robin angrily.  "You let me go.  I'll call
+Little John to you."
+
+"Call him, and I'll knock his ugly old eye out," cried the boy.  "I
+don't care for no Little Johns.  I've got you now, and I'm going to
+pay you for not coming back before.  And I know," he snarled,
+"you're a thief; that's what you are."
+
+"I'm not," cried Robin fiercely, and he made a desperate struggle
+to get away to where his little quarter-staff lay half hidden
+amongst the bracken.  "You let me go." But his efforts to get free
+were vain.
+
+"Yes, I'll let you go, p'raps, when I've done with you and got all
+I wants," said the boy, in a husky, satisfied tone, as he seemed to
+gloat over his victim.  "No, I won't; you're a thief, and a
+deer-stealer, and I shall just take yer to one of the King's
+keepers."
+
+Young Robin set his teeth and made another struggle, but quite in
+vain, for he was no match in strength for his adversary.
+
+"What!  Hold still!  Wo ho, kicker!  Quiet, will yer!" snarled the
+boy.  "If yer don't leave off I'll drag yer through all the worst
+brambles and pitch yer to my tigs.  D'yer hear?" he shouted.
+
+Robin paused breathlessly, and stood gazing wildly at his enemy.
+
+"Yer thought I was giving yer up, did yer, but I wasn't.  I've been
+watching for yer ever since yer run away.  I knowed I should ketch
+yer some day.  Errrr! yer young thief!"
+
+He tightened his grip of Robin's shoulders, grinned at him like an
+angry dog, and gave him a fierce shake, while his victim breathed
+hard as he pressed his teeth together, and there was the look in
+his eyes as if he were some newly captured wild creature seeking a
+way to escape.
+
+"Kerm along," snarled the young swineherd.  "I dropped my staff
+just back here, and as soon as I gets it, I'm going to stand over
+yer while yer strips off all them things; and if yer tries to get
+away I'll break yer legs, and yer can't run then."
+
+Robin drew a breath which sounded like a deep sigh, and ceased his
+struggling, letting his enemy force him to walk backward among the
+bracken and nearly fall again and again, till all at once the
+savage young lout shouted:
+
+"Ah, here it is'" and loosening one hand, he was in the act of
+stooping to pick up the staff he had dropped in leaping upon his
+victim, who now made a bound which sent the boy face downward on to
+his staff, while Robin dashed off to where his own quarter-staff
+lay among the bracken--a spot he had glanced at again and again.
+
+He seized it in an instant, and was about to bound away among the
+trees, but his enemy had recovered himself, and staff in hand, came
+after him at so terrible a rate that Robin only avoided a swishing
+blow at his legs by dodging round a tree, which received the stroke.
+
+The next moment Robin faced round in the open beyond the tree, and
+stood on guard as he had been taught.
+
+"Ah, would yer?" snarled the young swineherd; "take that then."
+
+Whisk went the staff and then crack as it was received by Robin
+across his own, and then, profiting by Little John's lessons, he
+brought his own over from the left and delivered a sounding blow on
+his assailant's head.
+
+The swineherd uttered a savage yell as he staggered back, but came
+fiercely on again, striking with all his might, but so wildly that
+Robin easily avoided the blow, and brought his own staff down
+whack, crash, on his enemy's shoulders, producing a couple more
+yells of pain.  From that moment Robin had it all his own way, for
+he easily guarded himself from the swineherd's fierce strokes and
+retorted with swinging blows on first one arm, then on the other.
+Then he brought his staff down with a blow beside his enemy's left
+leg, then half behind the right, making him dance and limp as he
+yelled and sought in vain to beat down his active little adversary,
+who delivered a shower of cleverly directed blows in response to
+the wild swoops given with the worst of aim.
+
+In the heat and excitement Robin had felt no fear. He was on his
+mettle, and fighting for liberty, to gain which he felt that he
+must effectually beat his enemy; and thanks to Little John's
+lessons he thrashed him so well that at the end of five minutes the
+young swine-herd received a final stroke across the knuckles which
+made him shriek, drop his staff, and turn to run down a long
+straight avenue in the forest where the ground was open.
+
+Robin in his excitement began to run after him to continue the
+beating, but the swineherd went too fast, and on the impulse of the
+moment the victor stopped short, dropping his own staff and
+unslinging his bow from where it hung.  In less time than it takes
+to tell the bow was strung and an arrow fitted, drawn to the head,
+and with a twang it was loosed after the flying lad, now a hundred
+yards away; but as soon as it was shot Robin repented.
+
+"It'll kill him," he thought, and his heart seemed to stand still.
+
+For the boy's teacher had taught well, and here was the proof.
+Truly as if a long careful aim had been taken the arrow sped many
+times faster than the swineherd ran, and Robin's eyes dilated as he
+saw his adversary give a sudden spring and fall upon his face,
+uttering a hideous yell.
+
+Robin, full of repentance, started off to his enemy's help, but
+before he had gone many yards the swineherd sprang up and began to
+run faster than ever, while when Robin reached the spot there lay
+his arrow, but the lad was gone.
+
+"Only pricked him a bit," said Little John, when he heard of the
+adventure.  "Serve the young wretch right.  But the quarter-staff.
+My word, big un, I'd have given something to have been there to
+hear his bones rattle.  Well, I didn't teach you for naught.  But
+look here, if you meet that fellow in the forest again don't you
+wait for him to begin; you go at him at once."
+
+Robin nodded his head, but he never saw the swineherd again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Young Robin's father, the Sheriff, suffered very sadly from the
+loss of his son and his goods, and Robin's aunt came to Nottingham
+and wept bitterly over the loss of the little boy she loved dearly.
+For David, the old servant in whose charge Robin had been placed
+when he was going home, had done what too many weak people do,
+tried to hide one fault by committing another.
+
+Robin was given into his charge to protect and take safely home to
+his father, and when the attack was made by the outlaw's men,
+instead of doing anything to protect the little fellow and save him
+from being injured by Robin Hood's people, he thought only of
+himself.  He threw his charge into the first bushes he came to, and
+galloped away, hardly stopping till he reached Nottingham town.
+
+There the first question the Sheriff asked was, not what had become
+of the pack mules and the consignment of cloth, but where was
+Robin, and the false servant said that he had fought hard to save
+him in the fight, but fought in vain, and that the poor boy was
+dead.
+
+And then months passed and a year had gone by, and people looked
+solemn and said that it seemed as if the Sheriff would never hold
+up his head again.  But they thought that he should have gathered
+together a number of fighting men and gone and punished Robin Hood
+and his outlaws for carrying off that valuable set of loads of
+cloth.
+
+But Robin's father cared nothing for the cloth or the mules; he
+could only think of the bright happy little fellow whom he loved so
+well, and whom he wept for in secret at night when there was no one
+near to see.
+
+Robin's aunt when she came and tried to comfort him used to shake
+her head and wipe her eyes.  She said little, only thought a great
+deal, and she came over again and again to try and comfort her dead
+sister's husband; but it made no difference, for the Sheriff was a
+sadly altered man.
+
+Then all at once there was a change, and it was at a time when
+Robin's aunt was over to Nottingham.
+
+For one day a man came to the Sheriff's house and wanted him.  But
+the Sheriff would not see him, for he took no interest in anything
+now, and told his servant that the man must send word what his
+business was.
+
+The servant went out, and came back directly.
+
+"He says, sir, that he was taken prisoner by Robin Hood's men a
+week ago, and that he has just come from the camp under the
+greenwood tree, and has brought you news, master."
+
+The Sheriff started up, trembling, and told his servant to bring
+the strange man in.
+
+It was no beaten and wounded ruffian, but a hale and hearty fellow,
+who looked bright and happy, and before he could speak and tell his
+news the Sheriff began to question him.
+
+"You have come from the outlaws' camp?" he said with his voice
+trembling.
+
+"Yes, Master Sheriff."
+
+"They took you prisoner, and beat and robbed you?"
+
+"Oh! no, Master Sheriff; they took me before Robin Hood, and he
+asked me what I was doing there, and whether I was not afraid to
+cross his forest, and I up and told him plainly that I wasn't.
+Then he said how was that when I must have heard what a terrible
+robber he was."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried the Sheriff, "and what did you say."
+
+"I said that I had lived about these parts all my life and I never
+heard that he did a poor man any harm. Then he laughed, and all his
+people laughed too, and he said I was a merry fellow.  'Give him
+plenty to eat and drink,' he said, 'for two or three days, and then
+send him on his way.'  Yes, Master Sheriff, that he did, and a fine
+jolly time I had.  Why, I almost felt as if I should like to stay
+altogether."
+
+And all this time the Sheriff was watching the man very keenly, and
+suddenly he caught him by the arm.
+
+[Illustration: The Sheriff was watching the man very keenly, and
+suddenly caught him by the arm.]
+
+"Speak out," he said; "you did not come to tell me only that.  What
+is it you are keeping back?  Why don't you speak?"
+
+"Because, master," said the man softly, "I was afraid you couldn't
+bear it, for I was a father once and my son died, and though you
+never knew me, I knew you, and was sorry when the news came that
+your little boy was killed.  Can you bear to hear good news as well
+as bad?"
+
+The Sheriff was silent for a few minutes, during which he closed
+his eyes and his lips moved, and he looked so strange that Robin's
+aunt crossed the room to where he sat, and took hold of his hand,
+as she whispered loving words.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said softly, "I can bear it now.  Speak, pray speak,
+and tell me all."
+
+"But you will not be angry with me if I am wrong, Master Sheriff?"
+
+"No, no," said Robin's father; "speak out at once."
+
+"Well, Master Sheriff, no one would tell me when I asked questions,
+but there's a little fellow there, dressed all in Lincoln green,
+like one of Robin Hood's fighting men, with his sword and bugle,
+and bow and arrows, and somehow I began to think, and then I began
+to ask, whether he was Robin Hood's son; but those I asked only
+shook their heads.
+
+"That made me think all the more, and one day I managed to follow
+him but among the trees to where I found him feeding one of the
+wild deer, which followed him about like a dog."
+
+"I waited a bit, and then stepped out to him, and what do you think
+he did?  He strung his bow, fitted an arrow to it before I knew
+where I was, and drew it to the head as if he was going to shoot
+me.  'Do you know where Nottingham is?' I said, and he lowered his
+bow.  'Yes,' he said, 'of course.  Do you know my father?'  'Do I
+know the Sheriff?' I said; 'of course.'  'Are you going there
+soon?' he cried, and I nodded.  'Then you go to my father,' he
+cried, 'and tell him to tell aunt that I'm quite well, and that
+some day I'm coming home."
+
+The man stopped, for just then the Sheriff closed his eyes again
+and said something very softly, which Robin's aunt heard, and she
+sank upon her knees and covered her face with her hands.
+
+Then the Sheriff sprang to his feet, looking quite a different man.
+
+"Here," he said to the bringer of the news, and he gave him some
+gold pieces.  "Could you find your way back to the outlaws' camp in
+the forest?"
+
+"Oh! yes, Master Sheriff, that I could, though they did bind a
+cloth over my face when they brought me away."
+
+"And you could lead me and a strong body of fighting men right to
+the outlaws' camp?"
+
+"I could, Master Sheriff," said the man, beginning slowly to lay
+the gold pieces back one by one upon the table; "but I can't do
+evil for good."
+
+"What?" cried the Sheriff angrily.  "They are robbers and outlaws,
+and every subject of the King has a right to slay them."
+
+"May be, Master Sheriff," said the man drily; "but I'm not going to
+fly at the throat of one who did nothing but good to me.  They tell
+me that Robin Hood's a noble earl who offended the King, and had to
+fly for his life.  What I say is, he's a noble kind-hearted
+gentleman, and if it was my boy he had there, looking as happy as
+the day is long, I'd go to him without any fighting men."
+
+"How, then?" cried the Sheriff.
+
+"Just like a father should, master, and ask him for my boy like a
+man."
+
+"That will do," said the Sheriff.  "You can go."
+
+The man turned to leave the room, when the Sheriff said sharply:
+
+"Stop!  You are leaving the gold pieces I gave you."
+
+"Yes, I can't take pay to lead anyone to fight against Robin Hood
+and his men."
+
+"Those pieces were for the news you brought me," said the Sheriff.
+"Yes, take them, for you have behaved like an honest man."
+
+But the Sheriff did not take the man's advice, neither did he
+listen to the appeal of young Robin's aunt.  For, as Sheriff of
+Nottingham, he said to himself that it was his duty to destroy or
+scatter the band of outlaws who had lived in Sherwood Forest for so
+long a time.
+
+So he gathered a strong body of crossbow-men, and others with
+spears and swords, besides asking for the help of two gallant
+knights who came with their esquires mounted and in armour with
+their men.
+
+Somehow Robin Hood knew what was being prepared, and about a week
+after, when the Sheriff and his great following of about three
+hundred men were struggling to make their way through the forest,
+they heard the sound of a horn, and all at once the thick woodland
+seemed to be alive with archers, who used their bows in such a way
+that first one, then a dozen, then by fifties, the Sheriff's men
+began to flee, and in less than an hour they were all crawling back
+to Nottingham, badly beaten, not a man among them being ready to
+turn and fight.
+
+In another month the Sheriff advanced again with a stronger force,
+but they were driven back more easily than the first, and the
+Sheriff was in despair.
+
+But a couple of days later he had the man to whom he had given the
+gold pieces found, and sent him to the outlaws' camp with a letter
+written upon parchment, in which he ordered Robin Hood, in the
+King's name, to give up the little prisoner he held there contrary
+to the law and against his own will.
+
+It was many weary anxious days before the messenger came back, but
+without the little prisoner.
+
+"What did he say?" asked the Sheriff.
+
+"He said, master, that if you wanted the boy you must go and fetch
+him."
+
+It was the very next day that the Sheriff went into the room where
+young Robin's aunt was seated, looking very unhappy, and she jumped
+up from her chair wonderingly on seeing that her brother-in-law was
+dressed as if for a journey, wearing no sword or dagger, only
+carrying a long stout walking staff.
+
+"Where are you going, dear?" she said.
+
+"Where I ought to have gone at first," he said humbly; "into the
+forest to fetch my boy."
+
+"But you could never find your way," she said, sobbing.  "Besides,
+you are the Sheriff, and these men will seize and kill you."
+
+"I have someone to show me the way," said the Sheriff gently; "and
+somehow, though I have persecuted and fought against the people
+sorely, I feel no fear, for Robin Hood is not the man to slay a
+broken-hearted father who comes in search of his long-lost boy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The sun was low down in the west, and shining through and under the
+great oak and beech trees, so that everything seemed to be turned
+to orange and gold.
+
+It was the outlaws' supper time, the sun being their clock in the
+forest; and the men were gathering together to enjoy their second
+great meal of the day, the other being breakfast, after having
+which they always separated to go hunting through the woods to
+bring in the provisions for the next day.
+
+Robin Hood's men, then, were scattered about under the shade of a
+huge spreading oak tree, waiting for the roast venison, which sent
+a very pleasant odor from the glowing fire of oak wood, and young
+Robin was seated on the mossy grass close by the thatched shed
+which formed the captain's headquarters, where Maid Marian was busy
+spreading the supper for the little party who ate with Robin Hood
+himself.
+
+Little John was there, lying down, smiling and contented after a
+hard day's hunting, listening to young Robin, who was displaying
+the treasures he had brought in that day, and telling his great
+companion where he had found them.
+
+There were flowers for Maid Marian, because she was fond of the
+purple and yellow loosestrife, and long thick reeds in a bundle.
+
+"You can make me some arrows of those," said Robin; "and I've found
+a young yew tree with a bough quite straight.  You must cut that
+down and dry it to make me a bigger bow.  This one is not strong
+enough."
+
+"Very well, big one," said Little John, smiling and stretching out
+his hand to smooth the boy's curly brown hair.  "Anything else for
+me to do?"
+
+"Oh yes, lots of things, only I can't think of them yet.  Look
+here, I found these."
+
+The boy took some round prickly husks out of his pocket.
+
+"Chestnuts--eating ones."
+
+"Yes, I know where you got them," said Little-John, "but they're no
+good.  Look."
+
+He tore one of the husks open, and laid bare the rich brown nut;
+but it was, as he said, good for nothing, there being no hard sweet
+kernel within, nothing but soft pithy woolly stuff.
+
+"No good at all," continued the great forester; "but I'll show you
+a tree which bears good ones, only the nuts are better if they're
+left till they drop out of their husks."
+
+"And then the pigs get them," said Robin.
+
+"Then you must get up before the pigs, and be first.  Halloa!  What
+now?"
+
+For a horn was blown at a distance, and the men under the great oak
+tree sprang to their feet, while Robin Hood came out to see what
+the signal meant.
+
+Young Robin, who was now quite accustomed to the foresters' ways,
+caught up his bow like the rest, and stood looking eagerly in the
+direction from which the cheery sounding notes of the horn were
+blown.
+
+He had not long to wait, for half a dozen of the merry men in green
+came marching towards them with a couple of prisoners, each having
+his hands fastened behind him with a bow-string and a broad bandage
+tied over his eyes, so that they should not know their way again to
+the outlaws' stronghold.
+
+"Prisoners!" said young Robin.
+
+"Poor men, too," grumbled Little John.
+
+"Then you'll give them their supper and send them away to-morrow
+morning," said young Robin.
+
+"I suppose so," said Little John, "but I don't know what made our
+fellows bring them in."
+
+"Let's go and see," said young Robin.
+
+Little John followed as the boy marched off, bow in hand, to where
+Robin Hood was standing, waiting to hear what his men had to say
+about the prisoners they had brought in.  And as they drew near the
+boy saw that one was, a homely poor-looking man with round
+shoulders, the other, well dressed in sad-colored clothes, and thin
+and bent.  But the boy could see little more for the broad bandage,
+which nearly covered the prisoner's face and was tied tightly
+behind over his long, gray hair, while his gray beard hung down low.
+
+Young Robin looked pityingly at this prisoner, and a longing came
+over him to loosen the thong which tied his hands tightly behind
+him, and take off the bandage so that he could breathe freely, but
+just then Robin Hood cried:
+
+"Well, my lads, whom have we here?"
+
+The bowed down gray-haired prisoner rose erect at this, and cried:
+
+"Is that Robin Hood who speaks?"
+
+Before the outlaw could answer; he was stopped by a cry: from the
+boy, who threw down his bow and darted to the prisoner's side.
+
+"Father!" he cried; and he leaped up, as active now as one of the
+deer of the forest, to fling his arms about the prisoner's neck.
+
+But only for a moment.
+
+The next he had dropped to the ground, to look fiercely round at
+the astonished men, as he drew the dagger which hung from his belt.
+
+[Illustration: Robin looked fiercely round at the astonished men,
+as he drew the dagger which hung from his belt.]
+
+"Who dared do this?" he cried, as he reached up to tear the bandage
+from the face bending over him, and then darted round to begin
+sawing at the thong which held his father's hands.
+
+Little John took a step or two forward to help the boy, but Robin
+Hood held up his hand to keep him back, and a dead silence fell
+upon the great group of foresters who had pressed forward, and who
+eagerly watched the scene before them in the soft, amber sunshine
+which came slanting through the trees.  The task was hard, but the
+little fellow worked well, and many moments had not elapsed before
+the prisoner's hands were free, and as if seeing no one but the
+little forester before him in green, and quite regardless of all
+around, he dropped upon his knees, clasped the boy to his breast,
+and softly whispered the words:
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+Young Robin's arms were tightly round his father's neck by this
+time, and he was kissing the care-worn face again and again.
+
+"They didn't know who you were, father; they didn't know who you
+were," cried the boy passionately, as if asking his father's pardon
+for the outrage committed upon him.
+
+"No, Rob," said the Sheriff, in a choking voice; "they did not know
+who I was.  But you know your poor old father again."
+
+"Know you again!" cried the boy, hanging back, and looking at his
+father wonderingly.  "Why, yes; but what a long time you have been
+before you came to fetch me."
+
+"Yes, yes, my boy; a long, long year of misery and sorrow; but I
+have found you now, at last."
+
+"Oh! I am glad," cried the boy, struggling free, and catching his
+father's hand to lead him towards where Robin Hood and Marian were
+standing, wet-eyed, looking on.
+
+"This is my father," cried the boy proudly. "This is Robin Hood,
+the captain, father," he continued, and the Sheriff bowed gravely;
+"and this is Maid Marian, who has been so good to me."
+
+The Sheriff bowed slowly 'and gravely, as if to the greatest lady
+in the land, and then the boy dragged at his father's hand.
+
+"And this is old Little John, father," he cried.  "I say, isn't he
+big!"
+
+The Sheriff bowed again, and the great outlaw's face wore such a
+comic expression of puzzlement that Robin Hood laughed aloud, and
+completed his great follower's confusion.
+
+"He has been so good to me, father," cried young Robin.  "I can
+shoot with bow and arrow now, and sound my horn.  Hark!"
+
+The boy clapped his horn to his lips and blew a few cheery notes
+which ran echoing down the forest glades, and the men assembled
+gave a hearty cheer.
+
+"You're welcome to the woodlands, Master Sheriff," said Robin Hood,
+advancing now with extended hand.  "Do not take this as the
+outlaw's hand, nor extend yours as the Sheriff; but let it be the
+grasp of two Englishmen, one of whom receives a guest."
+
+"I thank you, sir," said the Sheriff slowly.  "I can give you
+nothing but thanks, for after a year of sorrow I find my child is
+after all alive and well."
+
+"And I hope not worse than when accident brought him into our
+hands.  What do you say?  Do you find him changed?"
+
+"Bigger and stronger," said the Sheriff, drawing the boy closer to
+him, while the little fellow clung to his hand.
+
+"Our woodland life; and I warrant you, Master Sheriff, that he is
+none the worse, for he is the truest, most gracious little fellow I
+ever met.  Here, Little Namesake, speak out, and let your father
+know you have been a good boy ever since you came here to stay."
+
+Young Robin was silent, and looked from one to the other in a
+curiously abashed fashion.
+
+"Well, boy, why don't you speak?" cried Robin Hood merrily.  "I
+want Master Sheriff to hear that we have not spoiled you.  Come,
+tell him.  You have always been a good boy, haven't you?"
+
+Young Robin hung his head.
+
+"No," he said slowly, with his brow wrinkled up, his head hanging
+and one foot scraping softly at the mossy grass.  "No, not always."
+
+Little John burst into a tremendous roar of laughter, and began to
+stamp about, with the result that young Robin made a dash at him
+and tried vainly to climb up and clap his hand over the great
+fellow's lips.
+
+"Don't--don't tell," cried the boy.
+
+"Ran at me--only yesterday," cried Little John--"and began to
+thrash me in a passion."
+
+"Don't tell tales out of school, Little John," cried Robin Hood,
+laughing.  "There, Rob, you must forgive him; we're none
+of-us-perfect.  Master Sheriff, and if your little fellow had been
+quite so, I don't think that we should all, to a man here, have
+loved him half so well.  But come, after his confession, I think
+you will grant one thing, and that is, that in spite of his having
+spent a year in the outlaws' camp, he is as honest as the day."
+
+"Nothing could make my boy Robin tell a lie," said the Sheriff
+proudly.  "But, sir, I have come humbly to you now.  Glad even to
+be your prisoner, so that I might once more see my child."
+
+"My prisoner if you had come amongst us with your posse of armed
+men, sir," said Robin Hood proudly.  "As it is, Master Sheriff, you
+come here alone with your guide, and I bid you welcome to our
+greenwood home.  Fate made me what I am, the Sheriff's enemy, but
+the gentle visitor's friend.  Come, Rob, my boy, show your father
+where he can take away the travel stains, and then bring him to our
+humble board."
+
+It was the next day that was to be young Robin's last with the
+outlaws in the merry greenwood, and all were gathered together to
+bid him farewell, and see him safely with his father on the road;
+but not as the Sheriff had come, wearily and on foot, for half a
+dozen of the best mules were forthcoming, and the guests were to
+ride back on their journey home.
+
+Who does not know how hard it is to say good-bye?  Young Robin did
+not till the time had come.
+
+He awoke that morning joyful and eager to start, for it was to go
+back home in company with the father whom he loved; but when the
+time came he had to learn how tightly so many of his little
+heartstrings had taken hold of the life under the greenwood tree.
+Everything about him had grown dear, and there was almost a mule
+load of treasures and pets of his own collecting that could not be
+left behind.
+
+And when they had been carefully packed in panniers by Little John
+and one of the men, there was the task of bidding them all
+good-bye, and then those two words grew harder every time.
+
+But he spoke out manfully and well, in spite of a choking
+sensation, till nearly the last.
+
+"For I'm coming back again," he said, "and you'll take care of my
+pet fawn for me, Little John, and always remember to feed it well.
+And don't forget the dog and that dormouse we couldn't find, so
+that I can have it when I come back, and--"
+
+_Croak_!
+
+What was that?
+
+It was a peculiar sound made up in the air by Little John, and that
+did it, for when young Robin looked up in astonishment, it was to
+see the great fellow's face all puckered up, and--yes, there were
+two great tears rolling down his cheeks as he caught the boy in his
+arms and kissed him.
+
+And so it was that when young Robin ran to bid Maid Marian
+good-bye, he could no longer hold it back.  As he clasped his arms
+about her neck, and kissed her passionately again and again, the
+sobs came fast, but the word _Good-bye_ would not come at all, and
+when they rode away, the boy dared not look back for fear the men
+should see his red and swollen eyes.  So he only waved his hat, and
+kept waving it to the last.
+
+But he was to see some of his friends again, for about a year after
+the Sheriff of Nottingham had the strangest visitors of his
+life-time at his house, and young Robin enjoyed the task of
+welcoming them, for as one old history says, Robin Hood was
+forgiven and restored by the King to his rightful possessions, and
+then it was that he was gladly welcomed by the Sheriff, who said he
+was honored by the visit of the nobleman and his lady.
+
+But it was nothing to young Robin then that his old friend was an
+earl, and his lady a countess; they were still Robin Hood and Maid
+Marian to him, and big Little John, their follower, his old friend
+and companion, full of memories of his year's happy life in the
+Merry Greenwood.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Robin Hood, by G. Manville Fenn
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11097 ***
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #11097 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11097)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Robin Hood, by G. Manville Fenn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Young Robin Hood
+
+Author: G. Manville Fenn
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2004 [EBook #11097]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG ROBIN HOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG ROBIN HOOD
+
+BY
+
+G. MANVILLE FENN
+
+Author of "The Little Skipper," "Our Soldier Boy," etc.
+
+
+
+
+WITH TWENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+
+Sit still, will you?  I never saw such a boy: wriggling about like
+a young eel."
+
+"I can't help it, David," said the little fellow so roughly spoken
+to by a sour-looking serving man; "the horse does jog so, and it's
+so slippery.  If I didn't keep moving I should go off."
+
+"You'll soon go off if you don't keep a little quieter," growled
+the man angrily, "for I'll pitch you among the bushes."
+
+"No, you won't," said the boy laughing.  "You daren't do so."
+
+"What!  I'll let you see, young master.  I want to know why they
+couldn't let you have a donkey or a mule, instead of hanging you on
+behind me."
+
+"Aunt said I should be safer behind you," said the boy; "but I'm
+not.  It's so hard to hold on by your belt, because you're so----"
+
+"Look here. Master Robin, I get enough o' that from the men.  If
+you say I'm so fat, I'll pitch you into the first patch o' brambles
+we come to."
+
+"But you are fat," said the boy; "and you dare not.  If you did my
+father would punish you."
+
+"He wouldn't know."
+
+"Oh! yes he would, David," said the little fellow, confidently;
+"the other men would tell him."
+
+"They wouldn't know," said the man with a chuckle.  "I say, aren't
+you afraid?"
+
+"No," said the boy.  "What of, tumbling off?  I could jump."
+
+"'Fraid of going through this great dark forest?"
+
+"No.  What is there to be afraid of?"
+
+"Robbers and thieves, and all sorts of horrid things.  Why, we
+might meet Robin Hood and his men."
+
+"I should like that," said the boy.
+
+"What?" cried the serving man, and he looked round at the great oak
+and beech trees through which the faintly marked road lay, and then
+forward and backward at the dozen mules, laden with packs of cloth,
+every two of which were led by an armed man.  "You'd like that?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy.  "I want to see him."
+
+"Here's a pretty sort of a boy," said the man.  "Why, he'd eat you
+like a radish."
+
+"No, he wouldn't," said the boy, "because I'm not a bit like a
+radish; and I say, David, do turn your belt round."
+
+"Turn my belt round?" said the man, in astonishment.  "What for?"
+
+"So as to put the sword the other side. It does keep on banging my
+legs so. They're quite bruised."
+
+"It's me that'll be bruised, with you punching and sticking your
+fisties into my belt.  Put your legs on the other side.  I can't
+move my sword.  I might want it to fight, you know."
+
+"Who with?" asked the boy.
+
+"Robbers after the bales o' cloth.  I shall be precious glad to get
+'em safe to the town, and be back home again with whole bones.  Sit
+still, will you!  Wriggling again!  How am I to get you safe home
+to your father if you keep sidling off like that?  Want me to hand
+you over to one of the men?"
+
+"Yes, please," said the boy, dolefully.
+
+"What?  Don't want to ride on one of the mules, do you?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said the boy.  "I should be more comfortable sitting
+on one of the packs.  I'm sure aunt would have said I was to sit
+there, if she had known."
+
+"Look here, young squire," said the man, sourly; "you've too much
+tongue, and you know too much what aren't good for you.  Your aunt,
+my old missus, says to me:
+
+"'David,' she says, 'you are to take young Master Robin behind you
+on the horse, where he can hold on by your belt, and you'll never
+lose sight of him till you give him into his father the Sheriff's
+hands, along with the bales of cloth; and you can tell the Sheriff
+he has been a very good boy during his visit'; and now I can't."
+
+"Why can't you?" said the boy, sharply.
+
+"'Cause you're doing nothing but squirming and working about behind
+my saddle.  I shall never get you to the town, if you go on like
+this."
+
+The boy puckered up his forehead, and was silent as he wondered
+whether he could manage to sit still for the two hours which were
+yet to elapse before they stopped for the night at a village on the
+outskirts of Sherwood Forest, ready to go on again the next morning.
+
+"I liked stopping with aunt at Ellton," said the little fellow to
+himself, sadly, "and I should like to go again; but I should like
+to be fetched home next time, for old David is so cross every time
+I move, and----"
+
+"Look here, young fellow," growled the man, half turning in his
+saddle; "if you don't sit still I'll get one of the pack ropes and
+tie you on, like a sack.  I never see such a fidgety young elver in
+my----Oh, look at that!"
+
+The man gave a tug at his horse's rein; but it was not needed, for
+the stout cob had cocked its ears forward and stopped short, just
+as the mules in front whisked themselves round, and the men who
+drove them began to huddle together in a group.
+
+For all at once the way was barred by about a dozen men in rough
+weather-stained green jerkins, each with a long bow and a sheaf of
+arrows at his back, and a long quarter-staff in his hand.
+
+David, confidential servant and head man to Aunt Hester, of the
+cloth works at Ellton, looked sharply round at the half-dozen
+heavily-laden mules behind him; and beyond them he saw another
+dozen or so of men, and more were coming from among the trees to
+right and left.
+
+"Hoi! all of you," cried David to his men.  "Swords out!  We must
+fight for the mistress's cloth."
+
+As he spoke, he seized the hilt of his sword and began to tug at
+it; but it would not leave its sheath, and all the while he was
+kicking at his horse's ribs with his heels, with the result that
+the stout cob gave a kick and a plunge, lowered its head, and
+dashed off at a gallop, with David holding on to the pommel.
+
+Two of the men made a snatch at the reins, but they were too late,
+and turned to the mule-drivers, who were following their leader's
+example and trying to escape amongst the trees, leaving the mules
+huddled together, squealing and kicking in their fright.
+
+Young Robin just saw two packages roll to the ground as the cob
+dashed off; then he was holding on with all his might to old
+David's belt as the cob galloped away with half-a-dozen of the
+robbers trying to cut it off.
+
+[Illustration: The stout cob dashed of at a gallop, with David
+holding on to the pommel.]
+
+Then the little fellow felt that he was being jerked and knocked
+and bruised, as the horse tore along with David, head and neck
+stretched out.  There was a rush under some low boughs, and another
+rush over a patch of brambles and tall bracken; then the cob made a
+bold dash at a dense mass of low growth, when there was a violent
+jerk as he made a bound, followed by a feeling as if the boy's arms
+were being torn out at the shoulders, a rush through the air, a
+heavy blow, and a sensation of tearing, and all was, giddiness and
+pain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+It is not nice to be pitched by a man off a horse's back on to the
+top of your head.
+
+That is what young Robin thought as he sat up and rubbed the place,
+looking very rueful and sad.
+
+But he did not seem to be entirely alone there in the dense forest,
+for there was another young robin, with large eyes and a speckled
+jacket, sitting upon a twig and watching him intently.  Robin could
+think of nothing but himself, his aching head, and his scratches,
+some of which were bleeding.
+
+Then he listened, and fancied that he heard shouting, with the
+trampling of mules and the breaking of twigs.
+
+But he was giddy and puzzled, and after struggling through some
+undergrowth he sat down upon what looked like a green velvet
+cushion; but it was only the moss-covered root of a great beech
+tree, which covered him like a roof and made all soft and shady.
+
+And now it was perfectly quiet, and it seemed restful after being
+shaken and jerked about on the horse's back.  Robin was tired too,
+and the dull, half-stupefied state of his brain stopped him from
+being startled by his strange position.  His head ached though, and
+it seemed nice to rest it, and he stretched himself out on the moss
+and looked up through the leaves of the great tree, where he could
+see in one place the ruddy rays of the evening sun glowing, and
+then he could see nothing--think nothing.
+
+Then he could think, though he still could not see, for it was very
+dark and silent and strange, and for some minutes he could not
+understand why he was out there on the moss instead of being in
+Aunt Hester's house at Elton, or at home in Nottingham town.
+
+But he understood it all at once, recollecting what had taken
+place, and for a time he felt very, very miserable.  It was
+startling, too, when from close at hand someone seemed to begin
+questioning him strangely by calling out:
+
+"Whoo-who-who-who?"
+
+But at the end of a minute or two he knew it was an owl, and soon
+after he was fast asleep and did not think again till the sun was
+shining brightly, and he sat up waiting for old David to come and
+pull him up on the horse again.
+
+Robin waited, for he was afraid to move.
+
+"If I begin to wander about," he said to himself, "David will not
+find me, and he will go home and tell father I'm lost, when all the
+time he threw me off the horse because he was afraid and wanted to
+save himself."
+
+So the boy sat still, waiting to be fetched.  The robin came and
+looked at him again, as if wondering that he did not pull up
+flowers by the roots and dig, so that worms and grubs might be
+found, and finally flitted away.
+
+Then all at once there was the pattering of feet, and half-a-dozen
+deer came into sight, with soft dappled coats, and one of them with
+large flat pointed horns; but at the first movement Robin made they
+dashed off among the trees in a series of bounds.
+
+Then there was another long pause, and Robin was thinking how
+hungry he was, when something dropped close to him with a loud rap,
+and looking up sharply, he caught sight of a little keen-eyed
+bushy-tailed animal, looking down from a great branch as if in
+search of something it had let fall.
+
+"Squirrel!" said Robin aloud, and the animal heard and saw him at
+the same moment, showing its annoyance at the presence of an
+intruder directly.  For it began to switch its tail and scold after
+its fashion, loudly, its utterances seeming like a repetition of
+the word "chop" more or less quickly made.
+
+Finding its scolding to be in vain, and that the boy would not go,
+the squirrel did the next best thing--bounded along from bough to
+bough; while, after waiting wearily in the hope of seeing David,
+the boy began to look round this tree and the next, and finally
+made his way some little distance farther into the forest, to be
+startled at last by a harsh cry which was answered from first one
+place and then another by the noisy party of jays that had been
+disturbed in their happy solitude.
+
+To Robin it was just as if the first one had cried "Hoi! I say,
+here's a boy."  And weary with waiting, and hungry as he was, the
+constant harsh shouting irritated the little fellow so that he
+hurried away followed by quite a burst of what seemed to be mocking
+cries, with the intention of finding the track leading across the
+forest; but he had not gone far before he found himself in an open
+glade, dotted with beautiful great oak trees, and nearly covered
+with the broad leaves of the bracken, which were agitated by
+something passing through and beneath, giving forth a grunting
+sound.  Directly after he caught sight of a long black back, then
+of others, and he saw that he was close to a drove of small black
+pigs, hunting for acorns.  One of the pigs found him at the same
+moment and saluted him with a sharp, barking sound wonderfully like
+that of a dog.
+
+This was taken up directly by the other members of the drove, who
+with a great deal of barking and grunting came on to the attack,
+for they did not confine themselves to threatening, their life in
+the forest making them fierce enough to be dangerous.
+
+Robin's first thought was to run away, but he knew that four legs
+are better than two for getting over the ground, and felt that the
+drove would attack him more fiercely if they saw that he was afraid.
+
+His next idea was to climb 'up into the fork of one of the big
+trees, but he knew that there was not time.  So he obeyed his third
+notion, which was to jump to where a big piece of dead wood lay,
+pick it up, and hit the foremost pig across the nose with it.
+
+That blow did wonders; it made the black pig which received it
+utter a dismal squeal, and its companions stop and stand barking
+and snapping all around him.  But the blow broke the piece of dead
+wood in two, and the fierce little animals were coming on again,
+when a voice cried:
+
+"Hi! you! knocking our tigs about!"  And a rough boy about a couple
+of years older than Robin rushed into the middle of the herd,
+kicking first at one and then at another, banging them with a long
+hooked stick he held, and making them run squealing in all
+directions.  "What are you knocking our tigs about for?" cried the
+boy sharply, as he stared hard at the strange visitor to the
+forest, his eyes looking greedily at the little fellow's purple and
+white jerkin and his cap with a little white feather in it.
+
+"They were coming to bite me," said Robin quickly, while it struck
+him as funny that the boy should knock the pigs about himself.
+
+"What are you doing here?" said the boy.
+
+Robin told of his misfortune, and finished by saying:
+
+"I'm so hungry, and I want to go home.  Where can I get some
+breakfast?"
+
+"Dunno," said the boy.  "Have some of these?"
+
+He took a handful of acorns from a dirty satchel, and held them
+out, Robin catching at them eagerly, putting one between his white
+teeth, and biting it, but only to make a face full of disgust.
+
+"It's bitter," he said.  "It's not good to eat."
+
+"Makes our tigs fat," said the boy; "look at 'em."
+
+"But I'm not a pig," said Robin.  "I want some bread and milk.
+Where can I get some?"
+
+The boy shook his head.
+
+"Where do you live?" asked Robin.
+
+"Along o' master."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+The boy shook his head and stared at the cap and feather, one of
+his hands opening and shutting.
+
+"Will you show me the way home, then?"
+
+The boy shook his head again, and now stared at the velvet jerkin,
+then at his own garb, which consisted of a piece of sack with slits
+in it for his head and arms to come through, and a strip of
+cow-skin for a belt to hold it in.
+
+"I could show you where to get something," he said at last.
+
+"Well, show me," cried Robin.
+
+"You give me that jacket and cap, then," cried the boy, in a husky,
+low voice.
+
+"Give you my clothes?" said Robin, wonderingly.  "I can't do that."
+
+"Then I shall take 'em?" said the boy, in a husky growl.
+
+"I'm so hungry," cried Robin.  "Show me where to get something, and
+I'll give you my cap and feather."
+
+"I wants the jacket too," said the boy.
+
+"I tell you I can't give you that," cried Robin.
+
+"Then I means to take it."
+
+Robin shrank away, and the boy turned upon him fiercely.
+
+"None of that," he cried.  "See this here stick?  If you was to try
+to run away I should send it spinning after you, and it would break
+your legs and knock you down, and I could send the tigs after you,
+and they'd soon bring you back."
+
+Robin drew a deep breath; he felt hot, and his hands clenched as he
+longed to strike out at his tyrant.  But the young swineherd was
+big and strong, and the little fellow knew that he could do next to
+nothing against such an enemy.
+
+Then there was a pause.  Robin stood, hot, excited, and panting;
+the herd-boy threw himself down on his chest, rested his chin upon
+his hands, as he stared fiercely at Robin, and kicked his feet up
+and down; while the pigs roamed here and there, nuzzling the fallen
+acorns out from the bracken, and crunching them up loudly.
+
+Robin wanted to run, and he did not want to run, and all at the
+same time, for his strongest desire just then was to fight his
+tyrant; and for some minutes neither spoke.
+
+At last the big boy said, in a low, growling way:
+
+"Now then, are you going to give me them things?"
+
+"No," said Robin, through his set teeth; and again there was
+silence.
+
+"You give 'em to me, and I'll show you the way to where they live
+and they'll give you roast deer and roast pig p'raps, for two of
+ourn's gone.  Master says he counted 'em, and they aren't all
+there, and he wales me with a strap because I let them take the
+pigs, and next time he counts 'em there's more than there was
+before, but he's whipped me all the same.  You give me them things,
+and I'll take you where you'll get lots to eat, and milk and eggs
+and apples.  D'yer hear?"
+
+"I won't give them to you.  I can't--I mustn't," cried Robin
+passionately.
+
+The boy said nothing, but looked away at his pigs, two of which
+were fighting.
+
+"Ah, would you?" he cried; and he made believe to rush at them with
+his big hook-handled stick.
+
+Robin was thrown off his guard, and before he was aware of it the
+boy made a side leap and, dropping his stick, seized him, threw him
+over on his back, and sat astride upon his chest.
+
+"Now won't you give em to me?" cried the herd-boy; and he whipped
+off the cap and threw it to a little distance, with the result that
+half a dozen pigs rushed at it; and as he made a brave fight to get
+rid of his enemy, the last that Robin saw of his velvet cap and
+plume was that one black pig tore out the feather, while another
+was champing the velvet in his mouth.
+
+It was a brave fight, but all in vain, and a few minutes later the
+boy was standing triumphantly over poor Robin, with the gay jerkin
+rolled up under his arm; and the little fellow struggled to his
+feet in his trunk hose and white linen shirt, hot, angry, and torn,
+and wishing with all his might that he were as big and strong as
+the tyrant who had mastered him.
+
+"I told yer I would," said the young ruffian, with a grin.  "You
+should ha' given 'em to me at first, and then I shouldn't have hurt
+yer.  Come on; I'll show yer now where yer can get something to
+eat."
+
+In his anger and shame Robin felt that he wanted no food now, only
+to go and hide himself away among the trees; but his enemy's next
+words had their effect.
+
+"You didn't want this here," he said.  "You've got plenty on you
+now.  Better nor I have.  There, go straight on there, and I'll
+show yer.  D'yer hear?"
+
+"I don't want to go now," said Robin fiercely.
+
+"Oh, don't yer?  Then I do.  You're agoing afore I makes yer, and
+when they've give yer a lot, you're going to eat part and bring
+some to me so's I can help eat the rest.  You bring a lot, mind,
+'cause I can eat ever so much.  Now then, go on."
+
+"I can't--I don't want to," cried Robin.  "You go first."
+
+"What, and master come, p'raps, and find me gone!  Likely! he'd
+give me the strap again. There, get on."
+
+Robin winced, for the young ruffian picked up his stick and poked
+him as he would one of his pigs.  But the little fellow could not
+help himself, and he went on in the required direction among the
+trees, the forest growing darker and darker, till suddenly voices
+were heard, and the boy stopped,
+
+"You go straight along there," he said, "and I'll wait."
+
+"No, you go," said Robin.  "You know them."
+
+"Oh! yes, and them want some more pigs!  Want me to be leathered
+again?"
+
+Robin said "No," but he felt all the time that he should like to
+see the young tyrant flogged and forced to return the folded up
+doublet; and he thought sadly of his spoiled and lost cap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"Now then, don't you be long," cried the young swineherd, and he
+raised his stick threateningly, and made another thrust at Robin,
+which was avoided; and feeling desperate now as well as hungry,
+feeling too, that it would be better to fall into any other hands,
+the little fellow ran on, following a faint track in and out among
+the trees, till he came suddenly into an opening, face to face with
+a group of fifty or sixty people busily engaged around a heap
+beneath a spreading beech tree.
+
+Robin's first act was to stand and stare, for the heap consisted of
+bales similar to those with which he had seen the mules laden a
+couple of days back, and tied up together a few yards away were the
+very mules, while the little crowd of men who were busy bore a very
+strong resemblance to those by whom the attack was made on the
+previous day.
+
+Robin knew nothing in those days about the old proverb of jumping
+out of the frying-pan into the fire, but he felt something of the
+kind as he found himself face to face with the marauders who had
+seized upon the bales of cloth and put his aunt's servants to
+flight, and without a moment's hesitation he turned and began to
+hurry back, but ran into the arms of a huge fellow who caught him
+up as if he had been a baby.
+
+[Illustration: Robin ran into the arms of a huge fellow, who caught
+him up as if he had been a baby.]
+
+"Hullo, giant!" cried the big man, "who are you?"  And the party of
+men with him, armed with long bows and arrows, began to laugh
+merrily.
+
+"Let me go--let me go!" cried the boy, struggling angrily.
+
+"Steady, steady, my little Cock Robin," said the man, in his big
+bluff way; "don't fight, or you'll ruffle your feathers."
+
+The boy ceased struggling directly.
+
+"How did you know my name was Robin?" he said.
+
+"Guessed it, little one.  There, I shan't hurt you.  Where do you
+come from?"
+
+"Ellton," said the boy.
+
+"But what are you doing here in the forest?"
+
+"You came and fought David, and frightened him and the men away,
+and those are our mules and the cloth."
+
+Robin stopped short, for the big man broke out into a loud whistle,
+and then laughed.
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said; "and so your name's Robin, is it?"
+
+The little fellow nodded.  "Yes," he said.  "What's yours?"
+
+"John," said the great fellow, laughing heartily; "and they call me
+little because I'm so big.  What do you think of that?"
+
+"I think it's very stupid," said the boy.  "I thought you must be
+Robin Hood."
+
+"Then you thought wrong. But if you thought that this one was you
+would be right.  Here he comes."  The boy looked in wonder at a
+tall man who looked short beside Little John, as he came up in coat
+of green with brown belt, a sword by his side, quiver of arrows
+hung on his back, and longbow in his hand.
+
+"What woodland bird have you got here, John?" he said.  And the boy
+saw that he smiled pleasantly and did not look fierce or
+threatening.
+
+"A young Robin," said the big fellow; "part of yesterday's plunder."
+
+"I want to find my way home," said the boy.  "Will you please show
+me?"
+
+"But you did not come here into the forest in shirt and hose, did
+you, my little man?" said the great outlaw.
+
+"No; someone took my cap and doublet away, sir."
+
+Robin Hood frowned.
+
+"Who was it?" he cried angrily.  "Find out, John, and he shall have
+a bowstring about his back.  Point out the man who stripped you, my
+little lad," he continued, turning to the boy.
+
+"It wasn't a man," said the little fellow, "but a boy who minds
+pigs."
+
+"What, a young swineherd!" cried the outlaw, laughing.  "Why did
+you let him?  Why didn't you fight for your clothes like a man?"
+
+"I did," said young Robin stoutly; "but he was so big, he knocked
+me down and sat upon me."
+
+"Oh! that makes all the difference.  How big was he--big as this
+man?"
+
+Young Robin glanced at the giant who had caught him, and shook his
+head.
+
+"No," he said; "not half, so big as he is.  But he was stronger
+than I am."
+
+"So I suppose. Well, bring him along. Little John, and let's see if
+the women can find him some clothes and a cap.  You would like
+something more to wear, wouldn't you?"
+
+"I should like something to eat,"' said the boy sadly.  "I have not
+had anything since breakfast."
+
+"That's not so very long," said Robin Hood. "We have not had
+anything since breakfast."
+
+"But I mean since breakfast yesterday," said young Robin piteously.
+
+"What!" cried Little John. "Why, the poor boy's starved.  But we
+can soon mend that.  Come here!"
+
+Young Robin's first movement was to shrink from the big fellow, but
+he smiled down in such a bluff, amiable way, that the boy gave him
+his hands, and in an instant he was swung up and sitting six feet
+in the air upon the great fellow's shoulder, and then rode off to
+an open-fronted shed-like place thatched with reeds, Robin Hood,
+with his bow over his shoulder, walking by the side.
+
+"Here, Marian," cried the outlaw, and young Robin's heart gave a
+throb and he made a movement to get down to go to the sweet-faced
+woman who came hurriedly out, wide-eyed and wondering, in her green
+kirtle, her long soft naturally curling hair rippling down her
+back, but confined round her brow by a plain silver band in which a
+few woodland flowers were placed.
+
+"Oh! Robin," she cried, flushing with pleasure; "who is this?"
+
+"It is some one for you to take care of," said the outlaw, who
+smiled at the bright look in the girl's face.  "He is both hungry
+and tired, and his people ran away and left him alone in the
+forest."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" she cried, as Little John lightly jumped the boy
+down at her feet.  "Come along."
+
+Young Robin put his hand in hers and gave her a look full of trust
+and confidence, before turning to the two men, for all his troubles
+seemed over now.
+
+"Thank you for bringing me here," he said; "but are you bold Robin
+Hood and Little John, of whom I've heard my father talk?"
+
+"I daresay we are the men he has talked about," said the outlaw
+smiling; "but who is your father, and what did he say?"
+
+"My father is the Sheriff of Nottingham," said the boy, "and he
+said that he was going to catch you and your men some day, for you
+were very wicked and bad.  But he did not know how good and kind
+you are, and I shall tell him when you send me home."
+
+The two men exchanged glances with Maid Marian.
+
+"We shall see," said the outlaw; "but you are nearly starved,
+aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, very, very hungry," said the boy, looking piteously at his
+new protector, whose hand he held.
+
+"Hungry?" she cried.
+
+"Yes, he has had nothing since yesterday morning; but you can cure
+that."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried the woman.  And she hurried young
+Robin beneath the shelter, and in a very short time he was smiling
+up in her face in his thankfulness, for she had placed before him a
+bowl of sweet new milk and some of the nicest bread he had ever
+tasted.
+
+As he ate hungrily he had to answer Maid Marian's questions about
+who he was and how he came there, which he did readily, and it did
+not strike him as being very dreadful that the mules and their
+loads had been seized, for old David had been very cross and severe
+with him for getting tired, and these people in the forest were
+most kind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+It was a very strange life for a boy who had been accustomed to
+every comfort, but young Robin enjoyed it, for everything seemed to
+be so new and fresh, and the men treated him as if he had come to
+them for the purpose of being made into a pet.
+
+They were, of course, fierce outlaws and robbers, ready to turn
+their bows and swords against anyone; but the poor people who lived
+in and about the forest liked and helped them, for Robin Hood's men
+never did them harm, while as to young Robin, they were all eager
+to take him out with them and show him the wonders of the forest.
+
+On the second day after his arrival in the camp, the boy asked when
+he was to be shown the way home, and he asked again on the third
+day, but only to be told each time that he should go soon.
+
+On the fourth day he forgot to ask, for he was busy with big Little
+John, who smiled with satisfaction when young Robin chose to stay
+with him instead of going with some of the men into the forest
+after a deer.
+
+Young Robin forgot to ask when he was to be shown the way home,
+because Little John had promised to make him a bow and arrows and
+to teach him how to use them.  The great tall outlaw kept his word
+too, and long before evening he hung a cap upon a broken bough of
+an oak tree and set young Robin to work about twenty yards away
+shooting arrows at the mark.
+
+"You've got to hit that every time you shoot," said Little John;
+"and when you can do that at twenty yards you have got to do it at
+forty.  Now begin."
+
+For the bow was ready and made of a piece of yew, and half a dozen
+arrows had been finished.
+
+"Think you can hit it?" said Little John, after showing the boy how
+to string his bow and fit the notch of the arrow to the string.
+
+"Oh! yes," said Robin confidently.
+
+"That's right! then you will soon be able to kill a deer."
+
+"But I don't want to kill a deer," said the boy.  "I want to see
+some, but I shouldn't like to kill one."
+
+"Wait till you're hungry, my fine fellow," said Little John,
+laughing.  "But my word! you look fine this morning; just like one
+of us.  Did Maid Marian make you that green jerkin?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy.
+
+"That's right; so's your cap and feather.  But now then, try if you
+can hit the cap.  Draw the arrow right to the head before you let
+it go.  My word, what funny little fumbling fingers yours are!"
+
+"Are they?" cried Robin, who thought that his teacher's hands were
+the biggest he had ever seen.
+
+"Like babies' fingers," said Little John, smiling down at the boy
+as if very much amused.  "Now then, draw right to the head."
+
+"I can't," said the boy; "it's so hard."
+
+"That's because you are not used to it, little one.  Try again.
+Hold tight, and pull hard.  Steadily.  That's the way.  Now loose
+it and let it go."
+
+Young Robin did as he was told, and away went the arrow down
+between the trees, to fall with its feathered wings just showing
+above the fallen leaves.
+
+"That didn't hit the cap," said Little John.  "Never went near."
+
+Young Robin shook his head.
+
+"Did you look at the cap when you loosed the arrow?"
+
+"No," said Robin; "I shut my eyes."
+
+"Try again then, and keep them open."
+
+Robin tried and tried again till he had sent off all six of his
+shafts, and then he stood and looked up at Little John, and Little
+John looked down at him.
+
+"You couldn't kill a deer for dinner to-day," said the big fellow.
+
+"No," said young Robin; "it's so hard.  Could you have hit it?"
+
+"I think I could if I stood ten times as far away," said the great
+fellow quietly.
+
+"Oh, do try, please," cried Robin.
+
+"Very well; only let's pick up your arrows first, or we may lose
+some of them.  Always pick up your arrows while they are fresh--I
+mean, while you can remember where they are."
+
+The shafts were picked up, mostly by Little John, whose eyes were
+very sharp at seeing where the little arrows lay; and then they
+walked back, and Robin had to run by his big companion's side, for
+he began to stride away, counting as he went, till he had taken two
+hundred steps from the tree all along one of the alleys of the
+forest, when he stopped short.
+
+"Now then, my little bowman," he said; "think I can hit the mark
+now?"
+
+"No," said Robin decisively; "we're too far away.  I can hardly see
+the cap."
+
+"Well, let's try," said Little John, stringing his bow, and then
+carefully selecting an arrow from the quiver at his back.  This
+arrow he drew two or three times through his hand so as to smooth
+the feathering and make the web lie straight, before fitting the
+notch to the string.
+
+"So you think it's too far?" said Little John.
+
+"Yes, ever so much."
+
+"Ah, well, we'll try," said the big fellow coolly.  "Where-about
+shall I hit the cap--in the middle?"
+
+[Illustration: "Ah, well, we'll try," said Little John.
+"Whereabouts shall I hit the cap?"]
+
+"No," said Robin; "just at the top of the brim."
+
+"Very well," said the big fellow, standing up very straight and
+rather sidewise, as he held his bow at his left arm's length,
+slowly drew the arrow to the head, and then as Robin gazed in the
+direction of the indistinctly seen hat hanging on the tree-trunk--
+
+Twang!
+
+The arrow had been loosed, and the bow had given forth a strange
+deep musical sound.
+
+Robin looked sharply at Little John, and the big outlaw looked down
+at him.
+
+"Where did that arrow go?" said the boy.
+
+"Let's see," said Little John.
+
+"I don't think we shall ever find it again," continued Robin.
+
+They walked back, the outlaw very slowly, and Robin quite fast so
+as to keep up with him.
+
+"Perhaps not," said Little John, "but I don't often lose my arrows."
+
+"This one has gone right through the ferns," thought Robin, and he
+felt glad with the thought of the big fellow having missed the
+mark, but as they walked nearer, he kept his eyes fixed upon the
+great trunk dimly seen in the shade, being tripped up twice by the
+bracken fronds; but he saved himself from a fall and watched the
+tree trunk still, while the hat hanging on the old bough grew
+plainer, just as it had been before.
+
+They had walked back nearly three parts of the way when Robin
+suddenly saw something which made him start, for there was a tiny
+bit of something white above something dark, and those marks were
+not on the brim of the hat before.
+
+The next minute Robin's eyes began to open wider, for he knew that
+he was looking at the feathered end of the arrow, pointing straight
+at him; and directly after, as he stepped a little on one side to
+avoid an ant-hill, he could see the whole of the arrow except the
+point, which had passed through the brim of the hat.
+
+"Why, you hit it!" he cried excitedly.
+
+"Well, that's what I tried to do," said Little John.
+
+"But you hit it just in the place I said."
+
+"Yes, you told me to," said Little John, smiling.  "That's how you
+must learn to shoot when you grow up to be a man."
+
+Young Robin said nothing, but stood rubbing one ear very gently,
+and staring at the hat.
+
+"Well," said Little John, smiling down at his companion, "what are
+you thinking about?"
+
+"I was thinking that it is very wonderful for you to stand so far
+off and shoot like that."
+
+"Were you, now?" said Little John.  "Well, it is not wonderful at
+all.  If you keep on trying for years you will be able to do it
+quite as well.  I'll teach you.  Shall I?"
+
+"I should like you to," said Robin, shaking his head; "but I can't
+stop here.  I must go home to my father."
+
+"Oh! must you?" said Little John.  "Go home to your father and
+mother, eh?"
+
+Robin shook his head.
+
+"No," he said; "my mother's dead, and I live sometimes with father
+and sometimes with aunt.  I am going home to father now, as soon as
+you show me the way.  When are you going to show me?"
+
+Little John screwed up his face till it was full of wrinkles.
+"Ah," he said, "I don't know.  You must ask the captain."
+
+"Who is the captain?" said the boy.
+
+"Eh?  Why, Robin Hood, of course.  But I wouldn't ask him just yet."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Eh?  Why not?  Because it might be awkward.  You see, it's a long
+way, and you couldn't go by yourself."
+
+"Well, you could show me," said young Robin.  "You would, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I would if I could," said Little John; "but I'm afraid I couldn't."
+
+"Oh! you could, I'm sure," said young Robin.  "You're so big."
+
+"Oh! yes, I'm big enough," said Little John, laughing; "but if I
+were to take you home your father would not let me come back again;
+and besides, the captain would not let me go for fear that I should
+be killed."
+
+"Killed?" said the boy, staring at his big companion.
+
+"Why, who would kill you?"
+
+"Your father, perhaps."
+
+"What, for being kind to me?"
+
+"I can't explain all these things to you, mite.  Here's someone
+coming.  Let's ask him.  Hi!  Captain!  Young squire wants me to
+take him home."
+
+Robin Hood, who had just caught sight of the pair and come up,
+smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Not yet, little one," he said.  "I can't spare big Little John.
+Why, aren't you happy here in the merry greenwood under the trees?
+I thought you liked us."
+
+"So I do," said young Robin, "and I should like to stay ever so
+long and watch the deer and the birds, and learn to shoot with my
+bow and arrows."
+
+"That's right.  Well said, little one," cried Robin Hood, patting
+the boy on the head.
+
+"But I'm afraid that my father will be very cross if I don't try to
+go home."
+
+"Then try and make yourself happy, my boy," said Robin Hood, "for
+you have tried hard to go home, and you cannot go."
+
+"Why?" said young Robin.
+
+"For a dozen reasons," said the outlaw, smiling.  "Here are some:
+you could not find your way; you would starve to death in the
+forest; you might meet people who would behave worse to you than
+the young swineherd, or encounter wild beasts; then, biggest reason
+of all: I will not let you go."
+
+Young Robin was silent for a moment or two, and then he said
+quickly:
+
+"You might tell Little John to take me home.  My father would be so
+glad to see him."
+
+Robin Hood and the big fellow just named looked at one another and
+laughed.
+
+"Yes," said Robin Hood, patting the boy on the shoulder, "now
+that's just it.  Your father, the Sheriff, would be so glad to see
+Little John that he would keep him altogether; and I can't spare
+him."
+
+"I don't think my father would be so unkind," said Robin.
+
+"But I am sure he would, little man," said the outlaw.  "He'd be so
+glad to get him that he would spoil him.  Eh, John?  What do you
+think?"
+
+"Ay, that he would," said Little John, shaking his head.  "He'd be
+sure to spoil me.  He'd cut me shorter, perhaps, or else hang me up
+for an ornament.  No, my little man, I couldn't take you home."
+
+"There," said the outlaw, smiling; "you must wait, my boy. Try and
+be contented as you are.  Maid Marian's very kind to you, is she
+not?"
+
+"Oh! yes," cried the boy, with his face lighting up, "and that's
+why I don't want to go."
+
+"Hullo!" growled Little John.  "Why, you said just now that you did
+want to go!" "Did I?" said the boy thoughtfully.
+
+"To be sure you did.  What do you mean."
+
+"I mean," said the boy, looking wistfully from one to the other,
+"that I feel as if I ought to go home, but I think I should like to
+stay."
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Little John, taking off and waving his hat.  "Hear
+that, captain?  You've got another to add to your merry men.  Young
+Robin and I make a capital pair.  Come along, youngster, and let's
+practise shooting at the mark, and then we'll make enough arrows to
+fill your quiver."
+
+Five minutes later young Robin was standing as he had been placed
+by his big companion, who sat down and watched him while he
+sturdily drew the notch of his arrow right to his ear, and then
+loosed the whizzing shaft to go flying away through the woodland
+shade, while Little John shouted as gleefully as some big boy.
+
+"Hurrah!  Well done, little one!  There it is, sticking in yonder
+tree."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"As far as you like, Robin," said the outlaw, "only you must be
+wise.  Don't go far enough to lose your way.  Learn the forest by
+degrees.  Some day you will not be able to lose yourself."
+
+"But suppose I did lose myself," said the boy; "what then?"
+
+"I should have to tell Little John to bring all my merry men to
+look for you, and Maid Marian here would sit at home and cry till
+you were found."
+
+"Then I will not lose myself," said Robin.  And he always
+remembered his promise when he took his bow and arrows and, with
+his sword hanging from his belt, went away from the outlaws' camp
+for a long ramble.
+
+His bow was just as high as he was himself, that being the rule in
+archery, and his arrows, beautifully made by Little John, were just
+half the length of his bow.
+
+As to his sword, that was a dagger in a green shark-skin sheath
+given to him by Robin Hood, who said rightly enough that it was
+quite big enough for him.
+
+Maid Marian found a suitable buckle for the belt, one which Little
+John cut out of a very soft piece of deer-skin, the same skin
+forming the cross-belt which went over the boy's shoulder and
+supported his horn.
+
+For he was supplied with a horn as well, this being necessary in
+the forest, and Robin Hood himself taught him in the evenings how
+to blow the calls by fitting his lips to the mouthpiece and
+altering the tone by placing his hand inside the silver rim which
+formed the mouth.
+
+It was not easy, but the little fellow soon learned.  All the same,
+though, he made some strange sounds at first, bad enough, Little
+John declared, to give one of Maid Marian's cows the tooth-ache,
+and frighten the herds of deer farther and farther away.
+
+That was only at the first, for young Robin very soon became quite
+a woodman, learning fast to sound his horn, to shoot and hit his
+mark, and to find his way through the great wilderness of open
+moorland and shady trees.
+
+But it was more than once that he lost his way, for the trees and
+beaten tracks were so much alike and all was so beautiful that it
+was easy to wander on and forget all about finding the way back
+through the sun-dappled shades.
+
+And so it happened that one morning when the outlaw band had gone
+off hunting, to bring back a couple of fat deer for Robin Hood's
+larder, young Robin started by himself, bow in hand, down one of
+the lovely beech glades, and had soon gone farther than he had been
+before.
+
+The squirrels dropped the beech mast and dashed away through the
+trees, to chop and scold at him; the rabbits started from out of
+the ferns and raced away fast, showing the under part of their
+white cotton tails, before they plunged into their shady burrows;
+and twice over, as the boy softly passed out of the shade into some
+sunny opening, he came upon little groups of deer--beautiful
+large-eyed thin-legged does, with their fawns--grazing peacefully
+on the soft grass which grew in patches between the tufts of golden
+prickly furze, for they were safe enough, the huntsmen being gone
+in search of the lordly bucks, with their tall flattened horns if
+they were fallow deer, small, round, and sharply pointed if they
+were roes.
+
+There was always something fresh to see, and he who went slowly and
+softly through the forest saw most.  At such times as this young
+Robin would stop short to watch the grazing deer and fawns with
+their softly dappled hides, till all at once a pair of sharp blue
+eyes would spy him out, and the jay who owned those eyes would set
+up his soft speckled crest, show his fierce black moustachios, and
+shout an alarm again in a harsh voice--"Here's a boy! here's a
+boy!" and the does would leave off eating, throw up their heads,
+and away the little herd would go, nip--nip--nip, in a series of
+bounds, just as if their thin legs were so many springs, their
+black hoofs coming down close together and just touching the short
+elastic grass, which seemed to send them off again.
+
+"I wish they wouldn't be afraid of me," young Robin said.  "I
+shouldn't hurt them."
+
+But the does and fawns did not know that, for as Robin said this he
+was fitting an arrow to his bow-string, and threatening to send it
+flying after the shrieking jay which had given the alarm.  He
+forgot, too, that he had eaten heartily of delicious roasted fawn
+only a few days before.
+
+As he wandered on through glades where the sun seemed to send rays
+of glowing silver down through the oak or beech leaves as if to
+fill the golden cups which grew beneath them among the soft green
+moss, he would come out suddenly perhaps on one of the sunny forest
+pools, perhaps where the water was half covered with broad flat
+leaves, among which were silver blossoms, in other places golden,
+with arrow weed at the sides, along with whispering reeds and
+sword-shaped iris plants.  There beneath the floating leaves great
+golden-sided carp and tench floated, and sometimes a fierce-eyed
+green-splashed pike, while over all flitted and darted upon gauzy
+wings beautiful dragon-flies, chasing the tiny gnats--blue, brown,
+golden, and golden-green--and now and then encountering and making
+their wings rustle as they touched in rapid flight.  Then as he
+stood with his hand resting against a tree trunk, peering forward,
+a curious little head with bright crimson eyes divided the sedge or
+reeds growing in the water, its owner looking out to see if there
+was any danger; and as it looked, Robin could see that the bird's
+beak seemed to be continued right up into a fiat red plate between
+its eyes.
+
+[Illustration: Robin stood with his hand resting against a tree
+trunk.]
+
+Then it came sailing out, swimming by means of its long thin legs
+and toes, coming right into the opening, looking of a dark shiny
+brownish green, all but its stunted tail, the under part of which
+was pure white, with a black band across.
+
+Little John told him afterwards that it was a moor-hen, even if it
+was a cock bird.  It was, not this which took so much of Robin's
+attention, but the seven or eight little dark balls which followed
+it out along one of the lanes of open water, swimming here and
+there and making dabs with their little beaks at the insects
+gliding about the top.
+
+It was so quiet and seemed so safe that directly after the reeds
+parted again and another bird swam out from among the sheltering
+reeds.  Robin knew this directly as a drake, but he had never
+before seen one with such a gloriously green head, rich
+chestnut-colored breast, soft gray back, or glistening metallic
+purple wing spots.
+
+Robin could have sent a sharp-pointed arrow at this beautiful bird,
+and perhaps have killed it, for he knew well that roast duck or
+drake is very nice stuffed with sage and onions, and with green
+peas to eat therewith; but he never thought of using his bow, and
+he was content to feast his eyes upon the bird's beauty and watch
+its motions.
+
+The drake took no notice of the moor-hen and her dusky dabs, but
+swam right out in the middle, seemed to stand up on the water,
+stretching out his neck and flapping his wings so sharply that
+something right on the other side moved suddenly, and Robin saw
+that there was another bird which he had not seen before--a
+long-necked, long-legged, loose-feathered gray creature with sharp
+eyes and a thin beak, standing in the water and staring eagerly at
+the drake as much as to say:
+
+"What's the matter there?" while he uttered aloud the one enquiring
+cry--
+
+"Quaik?"
+
+"Wirk--wirk--wirk!" said the drake.
+
+"Quack, quack, quack, quack!" came from out of the reeds, and a
+brown duck came sailing out, followed by ten little yellow balls of
+down with flat beaks, swimming like their mother, but in a hurried
+pop-and-go-one fashion, in and out, and round and round, and
+seeming to go through country dances on the water in chase of water
+beetles and running spiders or flies, while the duck kept on
+uttering a warning quack, and the drake, who, first with one eye
+and then with the other, kept a sharp look up in the sky for
+falcons and hawks, now and then muttered out a satisfied
+"Wirk--wirk--wirk!"
+
+Robin was Just thinking how beautiful it all was, when the danger
+for which the drake was watching in the sky suddenly came from the
+water beneath.
+
+One of the downy yellow dabs had swum two yards away from the
+others and his mother, after a daddy long-legs which had flown down
+on to the surface of the water, and had opened its little flat beak
+to seize it, when there was a whirl in the water, a rush and
+splash, and two great jaws armed with sharp teeth closed over the
+duckling, which was visible one moment, gone the next, and Robin
+drew an arrow out to fit to his bow-string.
+
+But he was too late to send it whizzing at the great pike, which
+had given a whisk with its tail and gone off to some lair in the
+reeds to peacefully swallow the young duck, while the rest followed
+their quacking father and mother back to the shelter of the reeds,
+rushes, and sedge, where the moor-hen and her brood were already
+safe, while, startled by the alarm, the heron bent down as it
+spread its great gray wing's, sprang up, gave a few flaps and
+flops, and began to sail round above the pool till it grew peaceful
+again, when, stretching out its legs, the heron dropped back into
+the water, stood motionless gazing down with meditative eyes as if
+quite satisfied that no fish would touch it, and then, _flick_!
+
+It had taken place so rapidly that Robin hardly saw the movement,
+but certainly the heron's beak was darted in amongst the bottoms of
+the reeds where they grew out of the water, and directly afterwards
+the bird straightened itself again, to stand up with a kicking
+green frog in its scissor-shaped beak.
+
+Then there was a jerk or two, which altered the frog's position,
+and the beak from being only a little way open was shut quite
+close, and a knob appeared in the heron's long neck, went slowly
+lower and lower, and then disappeared altogether.
+
+Then the heron shuffled its wings a little as if to put the
+feathers quite straight, said "_Phenk_" loudly twice over, and shut
+one eye.
+
+For the bird had partaken of a satisfactory dinner, and was
+thinking about it, while young Robin sighed and thought it seemed
+very dreadful; but the next moment he was watching a streak of
+blue, which was a kingfisher with a tiny silver fish in its beak,
+and thinking he was beginning to feel hungry himself.
+
+So he left the side of the pool with another sigh, the noise he
+made sending off the great gray heron, and after a little
+difficulty he found his way back to the outlaws' camp and his own
+dinner, which, oddly enough, was not roast buck or fawn, but roast
+ducks and a fine baked pike, cooked in an earthen oven, with plenty
+of stuffing.
+
+Then, being hungry, young Robin partook of his own meal, and forgot
+all about what he had seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+It was all very wonderful to young Robin when he saw Little John or
+one of the other men let fly an arrow with a twang of the
+bow-string and a sharp whizz of the wings through the air, to
+quiver in a mark eighty or a hundred yards away, or to pierce some
+flying wild goose or duck passing in a flock high in air; but by
+degrees that which had seemed so marvellous soon ceased to astonish
+him, and at last looked quite easy.
+
+For Robin was delighted with his bow and arrows as soon as he found
+that he could send one of the light-winged shafts whistling in a
+beautiful curve to stick in some big tree.
+
+Then he began shooting at smaller trees, and then at saplings when
+he could hit the small trees.  But the saplings were, of course,
+much more difficult.  One day though, he went back to Little John
+in triumph to tell him that he had shot at a young oak about as
+thick as his wrist.
+
+"But you didn't hit it?" said the big fellow, smiling.
+
+"I just scratched one side of it though," cried the boy.
+
+"Did you now?  Well done!  You keep on trying, and you'll beat me
+some day."
+
+"I don't think I shall," said Robin, shaking his head thoughtfully.
+
+"Oh! but you will if you keep on trying.  A lad who tries hard can
+do nearly anything."
+
+"Can he?" said Robin.
+
+"To be sure he can; so you try, and when you can hit anything you
+shoot at you'll be half a man.  And when you've done growing you'll
+be one quite."
+
+"Shall I ever be as big as you?" asked Robin.
+
+"I hope not," said Little John, laughing.  "I'm too big."
+
+"Are you?" said Robin.  "I should like to be as big as you."
+
+"No, no, don't," cried Little John. "You go on growing till you're
+a six-footer, and then you stop.  All that grows after that's waste
+o' good stuff, and gets in your way.  Big uns like me are always
+knocking their heads against something."
+
+"But how am I to know when I'm six feet high?" said Robin.
+
+"Oh! I'll tell you, I'll keep measuring you, my lad."
+
+"And how am I to stop growing?"
+
+Little John took off his cap and scratched his head, as he wrinkled
+up his big, good-humored face.
+
+"Well, I don't quite know," he said; "but there's plenty o' time
+yet, and we shall see.  Might put a big stone in your hat; or keep
+you in a very dry place; or tie your shoulders down to your
+waist--no, that wouldn't do."
+
+"Why?" said Robin promptly.
+
+"Because it wouldn't stop your legs growing, and it's boys' legs
+that grow the most when they're young.  I say, though, what's
+become of all those arrows I made you?"
+
+"Shot them away."
+
+"And only two left.  You mustn't waste arrows like that.  Why
+didn't you look for them after you shot?"
+
+"I did," cried Robin, "but they will hide themselves so.  They
+creep right under the grass and among the weeds so that you can't
+find them again.  But you'll make me some more, won't you?"
+
+"Well," said Little John, "I suppose I must; but you will have to
+be more careful, young un.  I can't spend all my time making new
+arrows for you.  But there, I want you to shoot so that the captain
+will be proud of you, and some day you'll have to shoot a deer."
+
+"I don't think I should like to shoot a deer," said the boy,
+shaking his head.
+
+"Why not?"  They're good to eat."
+
+"They look so nice and kind, with their big soft eyes."
+
+"Well, a man then."
+
+"Oh, no!  I shouldn't like to shoot a man."
+
+"What not one of the captain's enemies who had come to kill him?"
+
+"I don't think I should mind so much then.  Look here, Little John,
+I'd shoot an arrow into his back, to prick him and make him run
+away."
+
+"And so you shall, my lad," cried Little John, and he set to work
+directly to cut some wood for arrows to refill the boy's quiver;
+and when those were lost, he made some more, for young Robin was
+always shooting and losing them; but Little John said it did not
+matter, for he was going to be a famous marksman, and the big
+fellow looked as proud of his pupil as could be.
+
+But Little John did not stop at teaching young Robin to shoot, for
+one day the boy found him smoothing and scraping a nice new piece
+of ash as thick as his little finger, which was not little at all.
+
+"You don't know what this is for," said the big fellow.
+
+"It looks like a little quarter-staff," said young Robin, "like all
+the men have."
+
+"Well done.  Guessed it first time. Now guess who it is for?"
+
+"Me," said the boy promptly.  And so it was, and what was more,
+Little John, in the days which followed, taught him how to handle
+it so as to give blows and guard himself, till the little fellow
+became as clever and active as could be, making the men roar with
+laughter when in a bout he managed to strike so quickly that his
+staff struck leg or arm before his opponent could guard.
+
+"Why, you're getting quite a forester, Robin," said the captain,
+smiling, "and what with your skill with bow and quarter-staff
+you'll soon be able to hold your own."
+
+Robin Hood's words were put to the proof in autumn, for one day
+when the acorns had swollen to such a size that they could no
+longer sit in their cups, and came rattling down from the sunny
+side of the great oak-trees, young Robin was having a glorious
+ramble.  He had filled his satchel with brown hazel nuts, had a
+good feast of blackberries, and stained his fingers.  He had had a
+long talk to a tame fawn which knew him and came when he whistled,
+and tempted a couple of squirrels down with some very brown nuts,
+laying them upon the bark of a fallen tree, and then drawing back a
+few yards, with the result that the bushy-tailed little animals
+crept softly down, nearer and nearer, ending by making a rush,
+seizing the nuts, and darting back to the security of a high branch
+of a tree.
+
+"I shouldn't hurt you," said Robin, as he stood leaning upon his
+little quarter-staff, watching them nibble away the ends of the
+nuts to get at the sweet kernel.  "If I wanted to I could unsling
+my bow, string it, and bring you down with an arrow; but I don't
+want to.  Why can't you both be as tame as my fawn?"
+
+The squirrels made no answer, but went on nibbling the nuts, and
+suddenly darted up higher in the tree, while Robin grew so much
+interested in the movements of the active little creatures that he
+heard no sound behind him, nor did he awaken to the fact that he
+was being stalked by some one creeping bare-footed from tree to
+tree to get within springing distance, till all at once he felt the
+whole weight of something alighting on his back and driving him
+forward so that he dropped his quarter-staff and came down on hands
+and knees.
+
+"Got yer, have I, at last?" cried a familiar voice, as he felt his
+ribs nipped, his assailant having seated himself on his back.
+"Didn't I tell yer I'd wait, and you was to bring me back a lot to
+eat?"
+
+Young Robin waited for no more, but in his agony of spirit he gave
+himself a wrench sidewise, dislodging his rider, and made an effort
+to struggle up again.
+
+But his old enemy held fast, and after a sharp struggle Robin stood
+panting, face to face with the young swineherd, who had him tightly
+by the doublet with both hands.
+
+"You let go," cried young Robin fiercely.  "You'll tear my coat."
+
+"I means to tear it right off dreckly," said the boy, grinning.  "I
+want a noo un again, and it'll just do.  I'm a-going to have them
+bow and arrows too, and the knife and cap, I'll let you see!  Going
+and hiding away all this time, when I told yer to come back!"
+
+"You let me go," panted Robin, looking vainly round for help.
+
+"Nay, there aren't no one a-nigh, and I've got yer fast.  Why
+didn't yer come back as I told you?"
+
+"I didn't want to," said Robin angrily.  "You let me go.  I'll call
+Little John to you."
+
+"Call him, and I'll knock his ugly old eye out," cried the boy.  "I
+don't care for no Little Johns.  I've got you now, and I'm going to
+pay you for not coming back before.  And I know," he snarled,
+"you're a thief; that's what you are."
+
+"I'm not," cried Robin fiercely, and he made a desperate struggle
+to get away to where his little quarter-staff lay half hidden
+amongst the bracken.  "You let me go." But his efforts to get free
+were vain.
+
+"Yes, I'll let you go, p'raps, when I've done with you and got all
+I wants," said the boy, in a husky, satisfied tone, as he seemed to
+gloat over his victim.  "No, I won't; you're a thief, and a
+deer-stealer, and I shall just take yer to one of the King's
+keepers."
+
+Young Robin set his teeth and made another struggle, but quite in
+vain, for he was no match in strength for his adversary.
+
+"What!  Hold still!  Wo ho, kicker!  Quiet, will yer!" snarled the
+boy.  "If yer don't leave off I'll drag yer through all the worst
+brambles and pitch yer to my tigs.  D'yer hear?" he shouted.
+
+Robin paused breathlessly, and stood gazing wildly at his enemy.
+
+"Yer thought I was giving yer up, did yer, but I wasn't.  I've been
+watching for yer ever since yer run away.  I knowed I should ketch
+yer some day.  Errrr! yer young thief!"
+
+He tightened his grip of Robin's shoulders, grinned at him like an
+angry dog, and gave him a fierce shake, while his victim breathed
+hard as he pressed his teeth together, and there was the look in
+his eyes as if he were some newly captured wild creature seeking a
+way to escape.
+
+"Kerm along," snarled the young swineherd.  "I dropped my staff
+just back here, and as soon as I gets it, I'm going to stand over
+yer while yer strips off all them things; and if yer tries to get
+away I'll break yer legs, and yer can't run then."
+
+Robin drew a breath which sounded like a deep sigh, and ceased his
+struggling, letting his enemy force him to walk backward among the
+bracken and nearly fall again and again, till all at once the
+savage young lout shouted:
+
+"Ah, here it is'" and loosening one hand, he was in the act of
+stooping to pick up the staff he had dropped in leaping upon his
+victim, who now made a bound which sent the boy face downward on to
+his staff, while Robin dashed off to where his own quarter-staff
+lay among the bracken--a spot he had glanced at again and again.
+
+He seized it in an instant, and was about to bound away among the
+trees, but his enemy had recovered himself, and staff in hand, came
+after him at so terrible a rate that Robin only avoided a swishing
+blow at his legs by dodging round a tree, which received the stroke.
+
+The next moment Robin faced round in the open beyond the tree, and
+stood on guard as he had been taught.
+
+"Ah, would yer?" snarled the young swineherd; "take that then."
+
+Whisk went the staff and then crack as it was received by Robin
+across his own, and then, profiting by Little John's lessons, he
+brought his own over from the left and delivered a sounding blow on
+his assailant's head.
+
+The swineherd uttered a savage yell as he staggered back, but came
+fiercely on again, striking with all his might, but so wildly that
+Robin easily avoided the blow, and brought his own staff down
+whack, crash, on his enemy's shoulders, producing a couple more
+yells of pain.  From that moment Robin had it all his own way, for
+he easily guarded himself from the swineherd's fierce strokes and
+retorted with swinging blows on first one arm, then on the other.
+Then he brought his staff down with a blow beside his enemy's left
+leg, then half behind the right, making him dance and limp as he
+yelled and sought in vain to beat down his active little adversary,
+who delivered a shower of cleverly directed blows in response to
+the wild swoops given with the worst of aim.
+
+In the heat and excitement Robin had felt no fear. He was on his
+mettle, and fighting for liberty, to gain which he felt that he
+must effectually beat his enemy; and thanks to Little John's
+lessons he thrashed him so well that at the end of five minutes the
+young swine-herd received a final stroke across the knuckles which
+made him shriek, drop his staff, and turn to run down a long
+straight avenue in the forest where the ground was open.
+
+Robin in his excitement began to run after him to continue the
+beating, but the swineherd went too fast, and on the impulse of the
+moment the victor stopped short, dropping his own staff and
+unslinging his bow from where it hung.  In less time than it takes
+to tell the bow was strung and an arrow fitted, drawn to the head,
+and with a twang it was loosed after the flying lad, now a hundred
+yards away; but as soon as it was shot Robin repented.
+
+"It'll kill him," he thought, and his heart seemed to stand still.
+
+For the boy's teacher had taught well, and here was the proof.
+Truly as if a long careful aim had been taken the arrow sped many
+times faster than the swineherd ran, and Robin's eyes dilated as he
+saw his adversary give a sudden spring and fall upon his face,
+uttering a hideous yell.
+
+Robin, full of repentance, started off to his enemy's help, but
+before he had gone many yards the swineherd sprang up and began to
+run faster than ever, while when Robin reached the spot there lay
+his arrow, but the lad was gone.
+
+"Only pricked him a bit," said Little John, when he heard of the
+adventure.  "Serve the young wretch right.  But the quarter-staff.
+My word, big un, I'd have given something to have been there to
+hear his bones rattle.  Well, I didn't teach you for naught.  But
+look here, if you meet that fellow in the forest again don't you
+wait for him to begin; you go at him at once."
+
+Robin nodded his head, but he never saw the swineherd again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Young Robin's father, the Sheriff, suffered very sadly from the
+loss of his son and his goods, and Robin's aunt came to Nottingham
+and wept bitterly over the loss of the little boy she loved dearly.
+For David, the old servant in whose charge Robin had been placed
+when he was going home, had done what too many weak people do,
+tried to hide one fault by committing another.
+
+Robin was given into his charge to protect and take safely home to
+his father, and when the attack was made by the outlaw's men,
+instead of doing anything to protect the little fellow and save him
+from being injured by Robin Hood's people, he thought only of
+himself.  He threw his charge into the first bushes he came to, and
+galloped away, hardly stopping till he reached Nottingham town.
+
+There the first question the Sheriff asked was, not what had become
+of the pack mules and the consignment of cloth, but where was
+Robin, and the false servant said that he had fought hard to save
+him in the fight, but fought in vain, and that the poor boy was
+dead.
+
+And then months passed and a year had gone by, and people looked
+solemn and said that it seemed as if the Sheriff would never hold
+up his head again.  But they thought that he should have gathered
+together a number of fighting men and gone and punished Robin Hood
+and his outlaws for carrying off that valuable set of loads of
+cloth.
+
+But Robin's father cared nothing for the cloth or the mules; he
+could only think of the bright happy little fellow whom he loved so
+well, and whom he wept for in secret at night when there was no one
+near to see.
+
+Robin's aunt when she came and tried to comfort him used to shake
+her head and wipe her eyes.  She said little, only thought a great
+deal, and she came over again and again to try and comfort her dead
+sister's husband; but it made no difference, for the Sheriff was a
+sadly altered man.
+
+Then all at once there was a change, and it was at a time when
+Robin's aunt was over to Nottingham.
+
+For one day a man came to the Sheriff's house and wanted him.  But
+the Sheriff would not see him, for he took no interest in anything
+now, and told his servant that the man must send word what his
+business was.
+
+The servant went out, and came back directly.
+
+"He says, sir, that he was taken prisoner by Robin Hood's men a
+week ago, and that he has just come from the camp under the
+greenwood tree, and has brought you news, master."
+
+The Sheriff started up, trembling, and told his servant to bring
+the strange man in.
+
+It was no beaten and wounded ruffian, but a hale and hearty fellow,
+who looked bright and happy, and before he could speak and tell his
+news the Sheriff began to question him.
+
+"You have come from the outlaws' camp?" he said with his voice
+trembling.
+
+"Yes, Master Sheriff."
+
+"They took you prisoner, and beat and robbed you?"
+
+"Oh! no, Master Sheriff; they took me before Robin Hood, and he
+asked me what I was doing there, and whether I was not afraid to
+cross his forest, and I up and told him plainly that I wasn't.
+Then he said how was that when I must have heard what a terrible
+robber he was."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried the Sheriff, "and what did you say."
+
+"I said that I had lived about these parts all my life and I never
+heard that he did a poor man any harm. Then he laughed, and all his
+people laughed too, and he said I was a merry fellow.  'Give him
+plenty to eat and drink,' he said, 'for two or three days, and then
+send him on his way.'  Yes, Master Sheriff, that he did, and a fine
+jolly time I had.  Why, I almost felt as if I should like to stay
+altogether."
+
+And all this time the Sheriff was watching the man very keenly, and
+suddenly he caught him by the arm.
+
+[Illustration: The Sheriff was watching the man very keenly, and
+suddenly caught him by the arm.]
+
+"Speak out," he said; "you did not come to tell me only that.  What
+is it you are keeping back?  Why don't you speak?"
+
+"Because, master," said the man softly, "I was afraid you couldn't
+bear it, for I was a father once and my son died, and though you
+never knew me, I knew you, and was sorry when the news came that
+your little boy was killed.  Can you bear to hear good news as well
+as bad?"
+
+The Sheriff was silent for a few minutes, during which he closed
+his eyes and his lips moved, and he looked so strange that Robin's
+aunt crossed the room to where he sat, and took hold of his hand,
+as she whispered loving words.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said softly, "I can bear it now.  Speak, pray speak,
+and tell me all."
+
+"But you will not be angry with me if I am wrong, Master Sheriff?"
+
+"No, no," said Robin's father; "speak out at once."
+
+"Well, Master Sheriff, no one would tell me when I asked questions,
+but there's a little fellow there, dressed all in Lincoln green,
+like one of Robin Hood's fighting men, with his sword and bugle,
+and bow and arrows, and somehow I began to think, and then I began
+to ask, whether he was Robin Hood's son; but those I asked only
+shook their heads.
+
+"That made me think all the more, and one day I managed to follow
+him but among the trees to where I found him feeding one of the
+wild deer, which followed him about like a dog."
+
+"I waited a bit, and then stepped out to him, and what do you think
+he did?  He strung his bow, fitted an arrow to it before I knew
+where I was, and drew it to the head as if he was going to shoot
+me.  'Do you know where Nottingham is?' I said, and he lowered his
+bow.  'Yes,' he said, 'of course.  Do you know my father?'  'Do I
+know the Sheriff?' I said; 'of course.'  'Are you going there
+soon?' he cried, and I nodded.  'Then you go to my father,' he
+cried, 'and tell him to tell aunt that I'm quite well, and that
+some day I'm coming home."
+
+The man stopped, for just then the Sheriff closed his eyes again
+and said something very softly, which Robin's aunt heard, and she
+sank upon her knees and covered her face with her hands.
+
+Then the Sheriff sprang to his feet, looking quite a different man.
+
+"Here," he said to the bringer of the news, and he gave him some
+gold pieces.  "Could you find your way back to the outlaws' camp in
+the forest?"
+
+"Oh! yes, Master Sheriff, that I could, though they did bind a
+cloth over my face when they brought me away."
+
+"And you could lead me and a strong body of fighting men right to
+the outlaws' camp?"
+
+"I could, Master Sheriff," said the man, beginning slowly to lay
+the gold pieces back one by one upon the table; "but I can't do
+evil for good."
+
+"What?" cried the Sheriff angrily.  "They are robbers and outlaws,
+and every subject of the King has a right to slay them."
+
+"May be, Master Sheriff," said the man drily; "but I'm not going to
+fly at the throat of one who did nothing but good to me.  They tell
+me that Robin Hood's a noble earl who offended the King, and had to
+fly for his life.  What I say is, he's a noble kind-hearted
+gentleman, and if it was my boy he had there, looking as happy as
+the day is long, I'd go to him without any fighting men."
+
+"How, then?" cried the Sheriff.
+
+"Just like a father should, master, and ask him for my boy like a
+man."
+
+"That will do," said the Sheriff.  "You can go."
+
+The man turned to leave the room, when the Sheriff said sharply:
+
+"Stop!  You are leaving the gold pieces I gave you."
+
+"Yes, I can't take pay to lead anyone to fight against Robin Hood
+and his men."
+
+"Those pieces were for the news you brought me," said the Sheriff.
+"Yes, take them, for you have behaved like an honest man."
+
+But the Sheriff did not take the man's advice, neither did he
+listen to the appeal of young Robin's aunt.  For, as Sheriff of
+Nottingham, he said to himself that it was his duty to destroy or
+scatter the band of outlaws who had lived in Sherwood Forest for so
+long a time.
+
+So he gathered a strong body of crossbow-men, and others with
+spears and swords, besides asking for the help of two gallant
+knights who came with their esquires mounted and in armour with
+their men.
+
+Somehow Robin Hood knew what was being prepared, and about a week
+after, when the Sheriff and his great following of about three
+hundred men were struggling to make their way through the forest,
+they heard the sound of a horn, and all at once the thick woodland
+seemed to be alive with archers, who used their bows in such a way
+that first one, then a dozen, then by fifties, the Sheriff's men
+began to flee, and in less than an hour they were all crawling back
+to Nottingham, badly beaten, not a man among them being ready to
+turn and fight.
+
+In another month the Sheriff advanced again with a stronger force,
+but they were driven back more easily than the first, and the
+Sheriff was in despair.
+
+But a couple of days later he had the man to whom he had given the
+gold pieces found, and sent him to the outlaws' camp with a letter
+written upon parchment, in which he ordered Robin Hood, in the
+King's name, to give up the little prisoner he held there contrary
+to the law and against his own will.
+
+It was many weary anxious days before the messenger came back, but
+without the little prisoner.
+
+"What did he say?" asked the Sheriff.
+
+"He said, master, that if you wanted the boy you must go and fetch
+him."
+
+It was the very next day that the Sheriff went into the room where
+young Robin's aunt was seated, looking very unhappy, and she jumped
+up from her chair wonderingly on seeing that her brother-in-law was
+dressed as if for a journey, wearing no sword or dagger, only
+carrying a long stout walking staff.
+
+"Where are you going, dear?" she said.
+
+"Where I ought to have gone at first," he said humbly; "into the
+forest to fetch my boy."
+
+"But you could never find your way," she said, sobbing.  "Besides,
+you are the Sheriff, and these men will seize and kill you."
+
+"I have someone to show me the way," said the Sheriff gently; "and
+somehow, though I have persecuted and fought against the people
+sorely, I feel no fear, for Robin Hood is not the man to slay a
+broken-hearted father who comes in search of his long-lost boy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The sun was low down in the west, and shining through and under the
+great oak and beech trees, so that everything seemed to be turned
+to orange and gold.
+
+It was the outlaws' supper time, the sun being their clock in the
+forest; and the men were gathering together to enjoy their second
+great meal of the day, the other being breakfast, after having
+which they always separated to go hunting through the woods to
+bring in the provisions for the next day.
+
+Robin Hood's men, then, were scattered about under the shade of a
+huge spreading oak tree, waiting for the roast venison, which sent
+a very pleasant odor from the glowing fire of oak wood, and young
+Robin was seated on the mossy grass close by the thatched shed
+which formed the captain's headquarters, where Maid Marian was busy
+spreading the supper for the little party who ate with Robin Hood
+himself.
+
+Little John was there, lying down, smiling and contented after a
+hard day's hunting, listening to young Robin, who was displaying
+the treasures he had brought in that day, and telling his great
+companion where he had found them.
+
+There were flowers for Maid Marian, because she was fond of the
+purple and yellow loosestrife, and long thick reeds in a bundle.
+
+"You can make me some arrows of those," said Robin; "and I've found
+a young yew tree with a bough quite straight.  You must cut that
+down and dry it to make me a bigger bow.  This one is not strong
+enough."
+
+"Very well, big one," said Little John, smiling and stretching out
+his hand to smooth the boy's curly brown hair.  "Anything else for
+me to do?"
+
+"Oh yes, lots of things, only I can't think of them yet.  Look
+here, I found these."
+
+The boy took some round prickly husks out of his pocket.
+
+"Chestnuts--eating ones."
+
+"Yes, I know where you got them," said Little-John, "but they're no
+good.  Look."
+
+He tore one of the husks open, and laid bare the rich brown nut;
+but it was, as he said, good for nothing, there being no hard sweet
+kernel within, nothing but soft pithy woolly stuff.
+
+"No good at all," continued the great forester; "but I'll show you
+a tree which bears good ones, only the nuts are better if they're
+left till they drop out of their husks."
+
+"And then the pigs get them," said Robin.
+
+"Then you must get up before the pigs, and be first.  Halloa!  What
+now?"
+
+For a horn was blown at a distance, and the men under the great oak
+tree sprang to their feet, while Robin Hood came out to see what
+the signal meant.
+
+Young Robin, who was now quite accustomed to the foresters' ways,
+caught up his bow like the rest, and stood looking eagerly in the
+direction from which the cheery sounding notes of the horn were
+blown.
+
+He had not long to wait, for half a dozen of the merry men in green
+came marching towards them with a couple of prisoners, each having
+his hands fastened behind him with a bow-string and a broad bandage
+tied over his eyes, so that they should not know their way again to
+the outlaws' stronghold.
+
+"Prisoners!" said young Robin.
+
+"Poor men, too," grumbled Little John.
+
+"Then you'll give them their supper and send them away to-morrow
+morning," said young Robin.
+
+"I suppose so," said Little John, "but I don't know what made our
+fellows bring them in."
+
+"Let's go and see," said young Robin.
+
+Little John followed as the boy marched off, bow in hand, to where
+Robin Hood was standing, waiting to hear what his men had to say
+about the prisoners they had brought in.  And as they drew near the
+boy saw that one was, a homely poor-looking man with round
+shoulders, the other, well dressed in sad-colored clothes, and thin
+and bent.  But the boy could see little more for the broad bandage,
+which nearly covered the prisoner's face and was tied tightly
+behind over his long, gray hair, while his gray beard hung down low.
+
+Young Robin looked pityingly at this prisoner, and a longing came
+over him to loosen the thong which tied his hands tightly behind
+him, and take off the bandage so that he could breathe freely, but
+just then Robin Hood cried:
+
+"Well, my lads, whom have we here?"
+
+The bowed down gray-haired prisoner rose erect at this, and cried:
+
+"Is that Robin Hood who speaks?"
+
+Before the outlaw could answer; he was stopped by a cry: from the
+boy, who threw down his bow and darted to the prisoner's side.
+
+"Father!" he cried; and he leaped up, as active now as one of the
+deer of the forest, to fling his arms about the prisoner's neck.
+
+But only for a moment.
+
+The next he had dropped to the ground, to look fiercely round at
+the astonished men, as he drew the dagger which hung from his belt.
+
+[Illustration: Robin looked fiercely round at the astonished men,
+as he drew the dagger which hung from his belt.]
+
+"Who dared do this?" he cried, as he reached up to tear the bandage
+from the face bending over him, and then darted round to begin
+sawing at the thong which held his father's hands.
+
+Little John took a step or two forward to help the boy, but Robin
+Hood held up his hand to keep him back, and a dead silence fell
+upon the great group of foresters who had pressed forward, and who
+eagerly watched the scene before them in the soft, amber sunshine
+which came slanting through the trees.  The task was hard, but the
+little fellow worked well, and many moments had not elapsed before
+the prisoner's hands were free, and as if seeing no one but the
+little forester before him in green, and quite regardless of all
+around, he dropped upon his knees, clasped the boy to his breast,
+and softly whispered the words:
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+Young Robin's arms were tightly round his father's neck by this
+time, and he was kissing the care-worn face again and again.
+
+"They didn't know who you were, father; they didn't know who you
+were," cried the boy passionately, as if asking his father's pardon
+for the outrage committed upon him.
+
+"No, Rob," said the Sheriff, in a choking voice; "they did not know
+who I was.  But you know your poor old father again."
+
+"Know you again!" cried the boy, hanging back, and looking at his
+father wonderingly.  "Why, yes; but what a long time you have been
+before you came to fetch me."
+
+"Yes, yes, my boy; a long, long year of misery and sorrow; but I
+have found you now, at last."
+
+"Oh! I am glad," cried the boy, struggling free, and catching his
+father's hand to lead him towards where Robin Hood and Marian were
+standing, wet-eyed, looking on.
+
+"This is my father," cried the boy proudly. "This is Robin Hood,
+the captain, father," he continued, and the Sheriff bowed gravely;
+"and this is Maid Marian, who has been so good to me."
+
+The Sheriff bowed slowly 'and gravely, as if to the greatest lady
+in the land, and then the boy dragged at his father's hand.
+
+"And this is old Little John, father," he cried.  "I say, isn't he
+big!"
+
+The Sheriff bowed again, and the great outlaw's face wore such a
+comic expression of puzzlement that Robin Hood laughed aloud, and
+completed his great follower's confusion.
+
+"He has been so good to me, father," cried young Robin.  "I can
+shoot with bow and arrow now, and sound my horn.  Hark!"
+
+The boy clapped his horn to his lips and blew a few cheery notes
+which ran echoing down the forest glades, and the men assembled
+gave a hearty cheer.
+
+"You're welcome to the woodlands, Master Sheriff," said Robin Hood,
+advancing now with extended hand.  "Do not take this as the
+outlaw's hand, nor extend yours as the Sheriff; but let it be the
+grasp of two Englishmen, one of whom receives a guest."
+
+"I thank you, sir," said the Sheriff slowly.  "I can give you
+nothing but thanks, for after a year of sorrow I find my child is
+after all alive and well."
+
+"And I hope not worse than when accident brought him into our
+hands.  What do you say?  Do you find him changed?"
+
+"Bigger and stronger," said the Sheriff, drawing the boy closer to
+him, while the little fellow clung to his hand.
+
+"Our woodland life; and I warrant you, Master Sheriff, that he is
+none the worse, for he is the truest, most gracious little fellow I
+ever met.  Here, Little Namesake, speak out, and let your father
+know you have been a good boy ever since you came here to stay."
+
+Young Robin was silent, and looked from one to the other in a
+curiously abashed fashion.
+
+"Well, boy, why don't you speak?" cried Robin Hood merrily.  "I
+want Master Sheriff to hear that we have not spoiled you.  Come,
+tell him.  You have always been a good boy, haven't you?"
+
+Young Robin hung his head.
+
+"No," he said slowly, with his brow wrinkled up, his head hanging
+and one foot scraping softly at the mossy grass.  "No, not always."
+
+Little John burst into a tremendous roar of laughter, and began to
+stamp about, with the result that young Robin made a dash at him
+and tried vainly to climb up and clap his hand over the great
+fellow's lips.
+
+"Don't--don't tell," cried the boy.
+
+"Ran at me--only yesterday," cried Little John--"and began to
+thrash me in a passion."
+
+"Don't tell tales out of school, Little John," cried Robin Hood,
+laughing.  "There, Rob, you must forgive him; we're none
+of-us-perfect.  Master Sheriff, and if your little fellow had been
+quite so, I don't think that we should all, to a man here, have
+loved him half so well.  But come, after his confession, I think
+you will grant one thing, and that is, that in spite of his having
+spent a year in the outlaws' camp, he is as honest as the day."
+
+"Nothing could make my boy Robin tell a lie," said the Sheriff
+proudly.  "But, sir, I have come humbly to you now.  Glad even to
+be your prisoner, so that I might once more see my child."
+
+"My prisoner if you had come amongst us with your posse of armed
+men, sir," said Robin Hood proudly.  "As it is, Master Sheriff, you
+come here alone with your guide, and I bid you welcome to our
+greenwood home.  Fate made me what I am, the Sheriff's enemy, but
+the gentle visitor's friend.  Come, Rob, my boy, show your father
+where he can take away the travel stains, and then bring him to our
+humble board."
+
+It was the next day that was to be young Robin's last with the
+outlaws in the merry greenwood, and all were gathered together to
+bid him farewell, and see him safely with his father on the road;
+but not as the Sheriff had come, wearily and on foot, for half a
+dozen of the best mules were forthcoming, and the guests were to
+ride back on their journey home.
+
+Who does not know how hard it is to say good-bye?  Young Robin did
+not till the time had come.
+
+He awoke that morning joyful and eager to start, for it was to go
+back home in company with the father whom he loved; but when the
+time came he had to learn how tightly so many of his little
+heartstrings had taken hold of the life under the greenwood tree.
+Everything about him had grown dear, and there was almost a mule
+load of treasures and pets of his own collecting that could not be
+left behind.
+
+And when they had been carefully packed in panniers by Little John
+and one of the men, there was the task of bidding them all
+good-bye, and then those two words grew harder every time.
+
+But he spoke out manfully and well, in spite of a choking
+sensation, till nearly the last.
+
+"For I'm coming back again," he said, "and you'll take care of my
+pet fawn for me, Little John, and always remember to feed it well.
+And don't forget the dog and that dormouse we couldn't find, so
+that I can have it when I come back, and--"
+
+_Croak_!
+
+What was that?
+
+It was a peculiar sound made up in the air by Little John, and that
+did it, for when young Robin looked up in astonishment, it was to
+see the great fellow's face all puckered up, and--yes, there were
+two great tears rolling down his cheeks as he caught the boy in his
+arms and kissed him.
+
+And so it was that when young Robin ran to bid Maid Marian
+good-bye, he could no longer hold it back.  As he clasped his arms
+about her neck, and kissed her passionately again and again, the
+sobs came fast, but the word _Good-bye_ would not come at all, and
+when they rode away, the boy dared not look back for fear the men
+should see his red and swollen eyes.  So he only waved his hat, and
+kept waving it to the last.
+
+But he was to see some of his friends again, for about a year after
+the Sheriff of Nottingham had the strangest visitors of his
+life-time at his house, and young Robin enjoyed the task of
+welcoming them, for as one old history says, Robin Hood was
+forgiven and restored by the King to his rightful possessions, and
+then it was that he was gladly welcomed by the Sheriff, who said he
+was honored by the visit of the nobleman and his lady.
+
+But it was nothing to young Robin then that his old friend was an
+earl, and his lady a countess; they were still Robin Hood and Maid
+Marian to him, and big Little John, their follower, his old friend
+and companion, full of memories of his year's happy life in the
+Merry Greenwood.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Robin Hood, by G. Manville Fenn
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