yes, and them want some more pigs! Want me to be leathered
again?"

Robin said "No," but he felt all the time that he should like to
see the young tyrant flogged and forced to return the folded up
doublet; and he thought sadly of his spoiled and lost cap.

CHAPTER III

"Now then, don't you be long," cried the young swineherd, and he
raised his stick threateningly, and made another thrust at Robin,
which was avoided; and feeling desperate now as well as hungry,
feeling too, that it would be better to fall into any other hands,
the little fellow ran on, following a faint track in and out among
the trees, till he came suddenly into an opening, face to face with
a group of fifty or sixty people busily engaged around a heap
beneath a spreading beech tree.

Robin's first act was to stand and stare, for the heap consisted of
bales similar to those with which he had seen the mules laden a
couple of days back, and tied up together a few yards away were the
very mules, while the little crowd of men who were busy bore a very
strong resemblance to those by whom the attack was made on the
previous day.

Robin knew nothing in those days about the old proverb of jumping
out of the frying-pan into the fire, but he felt something of the
kind as he found himself face to face with the marauders who had
seized upon the bales of cloth and put his aunt's servants to
flight, and without a moment's hesitation he turned and began to
hurry back, but ran into the arms of a huge fellow who caught him
up as if he had been a baby.

[Illustration: Robin ran into the arms of a huge fellow, who caught
him up as if he had been a baby.]

"Hullo, giant!" cried the big man, "who are you?" And the party of
men with him, armed with long bows and arrows, began to laugh
merrily.

"Let me go--let me go!" cried the boy, struggling angrily.

"Steady, steady, my little Cock Robin," said the man, in his big
bluff way; "don't fight, or you'll ruffle your feathers."

The boy ceased struggling directly.

"How did you know my name was Robin?" he said.

"Guessed it, little one. There, I shan't hurt you. Where do you
come from?"

"Ellton," said the boy.

"But what are you doing here in the forest?"

"You came and fought David, and frightened him and the men away,
and those are our mules and the cloth."

Robin stopped short, for the big man broke out into a loud whistle,
and then laughed.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said; "and so your na