Page 322 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

Nottingham called forth all his men likewise, and joined
with the Bishop, for he saw that this was the best chance that
had ever befallen of paying back his score in full to Robin
Hood. Will Scarlet and Little John and Allan a Dale had just
missed the King’s men to the eastward, for the very next
day after they had passed the line and entered Sherwood
the roads through which they had traveled were blocked, so
that, had they tarried in their journeying, they would surely
have fallen into the Bishop’s hands.
But of all this Robin knew not a whit; so he whistled
merrily as he trudged along the road beyond Stanton, with
his heart as free from care as the yolk of an egg is from cob-
webs. At last he came to where a little stream spread across
the road in a shallow sheet, tinkling and sparkling as it fret-
ted over its bed of golden gravel. Here Robin stopped, being
athirst, and, kneeling down, he made a cup of the palms of
his hands, and began to drink. On either side of the road,
for a long distance, stood tangled thickets of bushes and
young trees, and it pleased Robin’s heart to hear the little
birds singing therein, for it made him think of Sherwood,
and it seemed as though it had been a lifetime since he had
breathed the air of the woodlands. But of a sudden, as he
thus stooped, drinking, something hissed past his ear, and
struck with a splash into the gravel and water beside him.
Quick as a wink Robin sprang to his feet, and, at one bound,
crossed the stream and the roadside, and plunged headlong
into the thicket, without looking around, for he knew right
well that that which had hissed so venomously beside his
ear was a gray goose shaft, and that to tarry so much as

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