Young Robin Hood | Page 7

now.
"Thank you for bringing me here," he said; "but are you bold Robin
Hood and Little John, of whom I've heard my father talk?"
"I daresay we are the men he has talked about," said the outlaw smiling;
"but who is your father, and what did he say?"
"My father is the Sheriff of Nottingham," said the boy, "and he said
that he was going to catch you and your men some day, for you were
very wicked and bad. But he did not know how good and kind you are,
and I shall tell him when you send me home."
The two men exchanged glances with Maid Marian.
"We shall see," said the outlaw; "but you are nearly starved, aren't
you?"
"Yes, very, very hungry," said the boy, looking piteously at his new
protector, whose hand he held.
"Hungry?" she cried.
"Yes, he has had nothing since yesterday morning; but you can cure
that."
"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried the woman. And she hurried young
Robin beneath the shelter, and in a very short time he was smiling up in
her face in his thankfulness, for she had placed before him a bowl of
sweet new milk and some of the nicest bread he had ever tasted.
As he ate hungrily he had to answer Maid Marian's questions about
who he was and how he came there, which he did readily, and it did not
strike him as being very dreadful that the mules and their loads had

been seized, for old David had been very cross and severe with him for
getting tired, and these people in the forest were most kind.

CHAPTER IV
It was a very strange life for a boy who had been accustomed to every
comfort, but young Robin enjoyed it, for everything seemed to be so
new and fresh, and the men treated him as if he had come to them for
the purpose of being made into a pet.
They were, of course, fierce outlaws and robbers, ready to turn their
bows and swords against anyone; but the poor people who lived in and
about the forest liked and helped them, for Robin Hood's men never did
them harm, while as to young Robin, they were all eager to take him
out with them and show him the wonders of the forest.
On the second day after his arrival in the camp, the boy asked when he
was to be shown the way home, and he asked again on the third day,
but only to be told each time that he should go soon.
On the fourth day he forgot to ask, for he was busy with big Little John,
who smiled with satisfaction when young Robin chose to stay with him
instead of going with some of the men into the forest after a deer.
Young Robin forgot to ask when he was to be shown the way home,
because Little John had promised to make him a bow and arrows and to
teach him how to use them. The great tall outlaw kept his word too, and
long before evening he hung a cap upon a broken bough of an oak tree
and set young Robin to work about twenty yards away shooting arrows
at the mark.
"You've got to hit that every time you shoot," said Little John; "and
when you can do that at twenty yards you have got to do it at forty.
Now begin."
For the bow was ready and made of a piece of yew, and half a dozen

arrows had been finished.
"Think you can hit it?" said Little John, after showing the boy how to
string his bow and fit the notch of the arrow to the string.
"Oh! yes," said Robin confidently.
"That's right! then you will soon be able to kill a deer."
"But I don't want to kill a deer," said the boy. "I want to see some, but I
shouldn't like to kill one."
"Wait till you're hungry, my fine fellow," said Little John, laughing.
"But my word! you look fine this morning; just like one of us. Did
Maid Marian make you that green jerkin?"
"Yes," said the boy.
"That's right; so's your cap and feather. But now then, try if you can hit
the cap. Draw the arrow right to the head before you let it go. My word,
what funny little fumbling fingers yours are!"
"Are they?" cried Robin, who thought that his teacher's hands were the
biggest he had ever seen.
"Like babies' fingers," said Little John, smiling down at the boy as if
very much amused. "Now then, draw right to the head."
"I can't," said the boy; "it's so hard."
"That's because you are not used to it, little one. Try again.