gravel and water beside him. Quick as a
wink Robin sprang to his feet, and, at one bound, crossed 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