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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s which grew in patches between the tufts of golden p.r.i.c.kly 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 gra.s.s, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 c.o.c.k bird. It was, not this which took so much of Robin's attention, but the seven or eight little dark b.a.l.l.s 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 k.n.o.b 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 tw.a.n.g 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 pa.s.sing 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."