"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.