Young Robin Hood by George Manville Fenn (most popular novels of all time .TXT) 📗

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