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 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 deeply 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 thickets like hounds that had lost the
scent of the quarry. Then, buckling his belt more tightly around his
waist, he ran fleetly 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 and more away from them,
coursing over the ground like a greyhound. He never slackened his pace,
but ran along, mile after mile, till he had come nigh to Mackworth, over
beyond the Derwent River, nigh to Derby Town. Here, seeing that he was
out of present danger, he slackened in his running, and at last sat him
down beneath a hedge where the grass was the longest and the shade the
coolest, there to rest and catch his wind. "By my soul, Robin," quoth he
to himself, "that was the narrowest miss that e'er thou hadst in all
thy life. I do say most