Young Robin Hood, George Manville Fenn [book reader for pc txt] 📗

followed it out along one of the lanes of open water, swimming here and there and making dabs with their little beaks at the insects gliding about the top.

It was so quiet and seemed so safe that directly after the reeds parted again and another bird swam out from among the sheltering reeds. Robin knew this directly as a drake, but he had never before seen one with such a gloriously green head, rich chestnut-colored breast, soft gray back, or glistening metallic purple wing spots.

Robin could have sent a sharp-pointed arrow at this beautiful bird, and perhaps have killed it, for he knew well that roast duck or drake is very nice stuffed with sage and onions, and with green peas to eat therewith; but he never thought of using his bow, and he was content to feast his eyes upon the bird's beauty and watch its motions.

The drake took no notice of the moor-hen and her dusky dabs, but swam right out in the middle, seemed to stand up on the water, stretching out his neck and flapping his wings so sharply that something right on the other side moved suddenly, and Robin saw that there was another bird which he had not seen before—a long-necked, long-legged, loose-feathered gray creature with sharp eyes and a thin beak, standing in the water and staring eagerly at the drake as much as to say:

"What's the matter there?" while he uttered aloud the one enquiring cry—

"Quaik?"

"Wirk—wirk—wirk!" said the drake.

"Quack, quack, quack, quack!" came from out of the reeds, and a brown duck came sailing out, followed by ten little yellow balls of down with flat beaks, swimming like their mother, but in a hurried pop-and-go-one fashion, in and out, and round and round, and seeming to go through country dances on the water in chase of water beetles and running spiders or flies, while the duck kept on uttering a warning quack, and the drake, who, first with one eye and then with the other, kept a sharp look up in the sky for falcons and hawks, now and then muttered out a satisfied "Wirk—wirk—wirk!"

Robin was Just thinking how beautiful it all was, when the danger for which the drake was watching in the sky suddenly came from the water beneath.

One of the downy yellow dabs had swum two yards away from the others and his mother, after a daddy long-legs which had flown down on to the surface of the water, and had opened its little flat beak to seize it, when there was a whirl in the water, a rush and splash, and two great jaws armed with sharp teeth closed over the duckling, which was visible one moment, gone the next, and Robin drew an arrow out to fit to his bow-string.

But he was too late to send it whizzing at the great pike, which had given a whisk with its tail and gone off to some lair in the reeds to peacefully swallow the young duck, while the rest followed their quacking father and mother back to the shelter of the reeds, rushes, and sedge, where the moor-hen and her brood were already safe, while, startled by the alarm, the heron bent down as it spread its great gray wing's, sprang up, gave a few flaps and flops, and began to sail round above the pool till it grew peaceful again, when, stretching out its legs, the heron dropped back into the water, stood motionless gazing down with meditative eyes as if quite satisfied that no fish would touch it, and then, flick!

It had taken place so rapidly that Robin hardly saw the movement, but certainly the heron's beak was darted in amongst the bottoms of the reeds where they grew out of the water, and directly afterwards the bird straightened itself again, to stand up with a kicking green frog in its scissor-shaped beak.

Then there was a jerk or two, which altered the frog's position, and the beak from being only a little way open was shut quite close, and a knob appeared in the heron's long neck, went slowly lower and lower, and then disappeared altogether.

Then the heron shuffled its wings a little as if to put the feathers quite straight, said "Phenk" loudly twice over, and shut one eye.

For the bird had partaken of a satisfactory dinner, and was thinking about it, while young Robin sighed and thought it seemed very dreadful; but the next moment he was watching a streak of blue, which was a kingfisher with a tiny silver fish in its beak, and thinking he was beginning to feel hungry himself.

So he left the side of the pool with another sigh, the noise he made sending off the great gray heron, and after a little difficulty he found his way back to the outlaws' camp and his own dinner, which, oddly enough, was not roast buck or fawn, but roast ducks and a fine baked pike, cooked in an earthen oven, with plenty of stuffing.

Then, being hungry, young Robin partook of his own meal, and forgot all about what he had seen.

CHAPTER VI

It was all very wonderful to young Robin when he saw Little John or one of the other men let fly an arrow with a twang of the bow-string and a sharp whizz of the wings through the air, to quiver in a mark eighty or a hundred yards away, or to pierce some flying wild goose or duck passing in a flock high in air; but by degrees that which had seemed so marvellous soon ceased to astonish him, and at last looked quite easy.

For Robin was delighted with his bow and arrows as soon as he found that he could send one of the light-winged shafts whistling in a beautiful curve to stick in some big tree.

Then he began shooting at smaller trees, and then at saplings when he could hit the small trees. But the saplings were, of course, much more difficult. One day though, he went back to Little John in triumph to tell him that he had shot at a young oak about as thick as his wrist.

"But you didn't hit it?" said the big fellow, smiling.

"I just scratched one side of it though," cried the boy.

"Did you now? Well done! You keep on trying, and you'll beat me some day."

"I don't think I shall," said Robin, shaking his head thoughtfully.

"Oh! but you will if you keep on trying. A lad who tries hard can do nearly anything."

"Can he?" said Robin.

"To be sure he can; so you try, and when you can hit anything you shoot at you'll be half a man. And when you've done growing you'll be one quite."

"Shall I ever be as big as you?" asked Robin.

"I hope not," said Little John, laughing. "I'm too big."

"Are you?" said Robin. "I should like to be as big as you."

"No, no, don't," cried Little John. "You go on growing till you're a six-footer, and then you stop. All that grows after that's waste o' good stuff, and gets in your way. Big uns like me are always knocking their heads against something."

"But how am I to know when I'm six feet high?" said Robin.

"Oh! I'll tell you, I'll keep measuring you, my lad."

"And how am I to stop growing?"

Little John took off his cap and scratched his head, as he wrinkled up his big, good-humored face.

"Well, I don't quite know," he said; "but there's plenty o' time yet, and we shall see. Might put a big stone in your hat; or keep you in a very dry place; or tie your shoulders down to your waist—no, that wouldn't do."

"Why?" said Robin promptly.

"Because it wouldn't stop your legs growing, and it's boys' legs that grow the most when they're young. I say, though, what's become of all those arrows I made you?"

"Shot them away."

"And only two left. You mustn't waste arrows like that. Why didn't you look for them after you shot?"

"I did," cried Robin, "but they will hide themselves so. They creep right under the grass and among the weeds so that you can't find them again. But you'll make me some more, won't you?"

"Well," said Little John, "I suppose I must; but you will have to be more careful, young un. I can't spend all my time making new arrows for you. But there, I want you to shoot so that the captain will be proud of you, and some day you'll have to shoot a deer."

"I don't think I should like to shoot a deer," said the boy, shaking his head.

"Why not?" They're good to eat."

"They look so nice and kind, with their big soft eyes."

"Well, a man then."

"Oh, no! I shouldn't like to shoot a man."

"What not one of the captain's enemies who had come to kill him?"

"I don't think I should mind so much then. Look here, Little John, I'd shoot an arrow into his back, to prick him and make him run away."

"And so you shall, my lad," cried Little John, and he set to work directly to cut some wood for arrows to refill the boy's quiver; and when those were lost, he made some more, for young Robin was always shooting and losing them; but Little John said it did not matter, for he was going to be a famous marksman, and the big fellow looked as proud of his pupil as could be.

But Little John did not stop at teaching young Robin to shoot, for one day the boy found him smoothing and scraping a nice new piece of ash as thick as his little finger, which was not little at all.

"You don't know what this is for," said the big fellow.

"It looks like a little quarter-staff," said young Robin, "like all the men have."

"Well done. Guessed it first time. Now guess who it is for?"

"Me," said the boy promptly. And so it was, and what was more, Little John, in the days which followed, taught him how to handle it so as to give blows and guard himself, till the little fellow became as clever and active as could be, making the men roar with laughter when in a bout he managed to strike so quickly that his staff struck leg or arm before his opponent could guard.

"Why, you're getting quite a forester, Robin," said the captain, smiling, "and what with your skill with bow and quarter-staff you'll soon be able to hold your own."

Robin Hood's words were put to the proof in autumn, for one day when the acorns had swollen to such a size that they could no longer sit in their cups, and came rattling down from the sunny side of the great oak-trees, young Robin was having a glorious ramble. He had filled his satchel with brown hazel nuts, had a good feast of blackberries, and stained his fingers. He had had a long talk to a tame fawn which knew him and came when he whistled, and tempted a couple of squirrels down with some very brown nuts, laying them upon the bark of a fallen tree, and then drawing back a few yards, with the result that the bushy-tailed little animals crept softly down, nearer and nearer, ending by making a rush, seizing the nuts, and darting back to the security of a high branch of a tree.

"I shouldn't hurt you," said Robin, as he stood leaning upon his little quarter-staff, watching them nibble away the ends of the nuts to get at the sweet kernel. "If I wanted to I could unsling my bow, string it, and bring you down with an arrow; but I don't want to. Why can't you both be as tame as my fawn?"

The squirrels made no answer, but went on nibbling the nuts, and suddenly darted up higher in the tree, while Robin grew so much interested in the movements of the active little creatures that he heard no sound behind him, nor did he awaken to the fact that he was being stalked by some one creeping bare-footed from tree to tree to get within springing distance, till all at once he felt the whole weight of something alighting on his back and driving him forward so that he dropped his quarter-staff and came down on hands and knees.

"Got yer, have I,