man off a horse's back on to the
top of your head.

That is what young Robin thought as he sat up and rubbed the place,
looking very rueful and sad.

But he did not seem to be entirely alone there in the dense forest,
for there was another young robin, with large eyes and a speckled
jacket, sitting upon a twig and watching him intently. Robin could
think of nothing but himself, his aching head, and his scratches,
some of which were bleeding.

Then he listened, and fancied that he heard shouting, with the
trampling of mules and the breaking of twigs.

But he was giddy and puzzled, and after struggling through some
undergrowth he sat down upon what looked like a green velvet
cushion; but it was only the moss-covered root of a great beech
tree, which covered him like a roof and made all soft and shady.

And now it was perfectly quiet, and it seemed restful after being
shaken and jerked about on the horse's back. Robin was tired too,
and the dull, half-stupefied state of his brain stopped him from
being startled by his strange position. His head ached though, and
it seemed nice to rest it, and he stretched himself out on the moss
and looked up through the leaves of the great tree, where he could
see in one place the ruddy rays of the evening sun glowing, and
then he could see nothing--think nothing.

Then he could think, though he still could not see, for it was very
dark and silent and strange, and for some minutes he could not
understand why he was out there on the moss instead of being in
Aunt Hester's house at Elton, or at home in Nottingham town.

But he understood it all at once, recollecting what had taken
place, and for a time he felt very, very miserable. It was
startling, too, when from close at hand someone seemed to begin
questioning him strangely by calling out:

"Whoo-who-who-who?"

But at the end of a minute or two he knew it was an owl, and soon
after he was fast asleep and did not think again till the sun was
shining brightly, and he sat up waiting for old David to come and
pull him up on the horse again.

Robin waited, for he was afraid to move.

"If I begin to wander about," he said to himself, "David will not
find me, and he will go home and tell father I'm lost, when all the
time he threw me off the horse because he was afraid and wanted to
save himself."

So the boy sat still, waiting to be fetched. The robin came and
looked at him again, as if wondering that he did not pull up