Page 323 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

a moment meant death. Even as he leaped into the thicket
six more arrows rattled among the branches after him, one
of which pierced his doublet, and would have struck deep-
ly into his side but for the tough coat of steel that he wore.
Then up the road came riding some of the King’s men at
headlong speed. They leaped from their horses and plunged
straightway into the thicket after Robin. But Robin knew
the ground better than they did, so crawling here, stooping
there, and, anon, running across some little open, he soon
left them far behind, coming out, at last, upon another road
about eight hundred paces distant from the one he had left.
Here he stood for a moment, listening to the distant shouts
of the seven men as they beat up and down in the thick-
ets like hounds that had lost the scent of the quarry. Then,
buckling his belt more tightly around his waist, he ran fleet-
ly down the road toward the eastward and Sherwood.
But Robin had not gone more than three furlongs in that
direction when he came suddenly to the brow of a hill, and
saw beneath him another band of the King’s men seated in
the shade along the roadside in the valley beneath. Then he
paused not a moment, but, seeing that they had not caught
sight of him, he turned and ran back whence he had come,
knowing that it was better to run the chance of escaping
those fellows that were yet in the thickets than to rush into
the arms of those in the valley. So back he ran with all speed,
and had gotten safely past the thickets, when the seven men
came forth into the open road. They raised a great shout
when they saw him, such as the hunter gives when the
deer breaks cover, but Robin was then a quarter of a mile

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood