Page 107 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

Little John and the

Tanner of Blyth

NE FINE DAY, not long after Little John had left
Oabiding with the Sheriff and had come back, with his
worship’s cook, to the merry greenwood, as has just been
told, Robin Hood and a few chosen fellows of his band lay
upon the soft sward beneath the greenwood tree where
they dwelled. The day was warm and sultry, so that while
most of the band were scattered through the forest upon
this mission and upon that, these few stout fellows lay lazily
beneath the shade of the tree, in the soft afternoon, pass-
ing jests among themselves and telling merry stories, with
laughter and mirth.
All the air was laden with the bitter fragrance of the May,
and all the bosky shades of the woodlands beyond rang
with the sweet song of birds—the throstle cock, the cuckoo,
and the wood pigeon— and with the song of birds mingled
the cool sound of the gurgling brook that leaped out of the
forest shades, and ran fretting amid its rough, gray stones
across the sunlit open glade before the trysting tree. And a
fair sight was that halfscore of tall, stout yeomen, all clad in
Lincoln green, lying beneath the broad-spreading branches
of the great oak tree, amid the quivering leaves of which
the sunlight shivered and fell in dancing patches upon the

10 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood