Page 386 - the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

The first night they took up their inn at Nottingham
Town, yet they did not go to pay their duty to the Sheriff,
for his worship bore many a bitter grudge against Robin
Hood, which grudges had not been lessened by Robin’s rise
in the world. The next day at an early hour they mounted
their horses and set forth for the woodlands. As they passed
along the road it seemed to Robin that he knew every stick
and stone that his eyes looked upon. Yonder was a path that
he had ofttimes trod of a mellow evening, with Little John
beside him; here was one, now nigh choked with brambles,
along which he and a little band had walked when they went
forth to seek a certain curtal friar.
Thus they rode slowly onward, talking about these old, fa-
miliar things; old and yet new, for they found more in them
than they had ever thought of before. Thus at last they came
to the open glade, and the broad, wide-spreading green-
wood tree which was their home for so many years. Neither
of the two spoke when they stood beneath that tree. Robin
looked all about him at the well-known things, so like what
they used to be and yet so different; for, where once was
the bustle of many busy fellows was now the quietness of
solitude; and, as he looked, the woodlands, the greensward,
and the sky all blurred together in his sight through salt
tears, for such a great yearning came upon him as he looked
on these things (as well known to him as the fingers of his
right hand) that he could not keep back the water from his
eyes.
That morning he had slung his good old bugle horn over
his shoulder, and now, with the yearning, came a great long-