r 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 longing to sound his bugle once
more. He raised it to his lips; he blew a blast. "Tirila, lirila," the
sweet, clear notes went winding down the forest paths, coming back again
from the more distant bosky shades in faint echoes of sound, "Tirila,
lirila, tirila, lirila," until it faded away and was lost.

Now it chanced that on that very morn Little John was walking through a
spur of the forest upon certain matters of business, and as he paced
along, sunk in meditation, the faint, clear notes of a distant bugle
horn came to his ear. As leaps the stag when it feels the arrow at its
heart, so leaped Little John when that distant sound met his ear. All
the blood in his body seemed to rush like a flame into his cheeks as he
bent his head and listened. Again came the bugle note, thin and clear,
and yet again it sounded. Then Little John gave a great, wild cry of
yearning, of joy, and yet of grief, and, putting down his head, he
dashed into the thicket. Onward he plunged, crackling and rending, as
the wild boar rushes through the underbrush. Little recked he of thorns
and briers that scratched his flesh and tore his clothing, for all he
thought of was to get, by the shortest way, to the greenwood glade
whence he knew the sound of the bugle horn came. Out he burst from the
covert, at last, a shower of little broken twigs falling about him, and,
without pausing a moment, rushed forward and flung himself at Robin's
feet. Then he clasped his arms around the master's knees, and all his
body was shaken with great sobs; neither could Robin nor Allan a Dale
speak, but stood looking down at Little John, the tears rolling down
their cheeks.

While they thus stood, seven royal rangers rushed into the open glade
and raised a great shout of joy at the sight of Robi