Page 186 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

back to their wrists, which whistle always hung at his girdle
along with his rosary.
Scarcely had the echo of the last note of Robin’s bugle
come winding back from across the river, when four tall
men in Lincoln green came running around the bend of
the road, each with a bow in his hand and an arrow ready
nocked upon the string.
‘Ha! Is it thus, thou traitor knave!’ cried the Friar. ‘Then,
marry, look to thyself!’ So saying, he straightway clapped
the hawk’s whistle to his lips and blew a blast that was both
loud and shrill. And now there came a crackling of the
bushes that lined the other side of the road, and presently
forth from the covert burst four great, shaggy hounds. ‘At
‘em, Sweet Lips! At ‘em, Bell Throat! At ‘em, Beauty! At ‘em,
Fangs!’ cried the Friar, pointing at Robin.
And now it was well for that yeoman that a tree stood
nigh him beside the road, else had he had an ill chance of
it. Ere one could say ‘Gaffer Downthedale’ the hounds were
upon him, and he had only time to drop his sword and leap
lightly into the tree, around which the hounds gathered,
looking up at him as though he were a cat on the eaves. But
the Friar quickly called off his dogs. ‘At ‘em!’ cried he, point-
ing down the road to where the yeomen were standing stock
still with wonder of what they saw. As the hawk darts down
upon its quarry, so sped the four dogs at the yeomen; but
when the four men saw the hounds so coming, all with one
accord, saving only Will Scarlet, drew each man his goose
feather to his ear and let fly his shaft.
And now the old ballad telleth of a wondrous thing that

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