ith Robin and his band.

For all the livelong day they abided near this highway. Each man had
brought with him a good store of cold meat and a bottle of stout March
beer to stay his stomach till the homecoming. So when high noontide had
come they sat them down upon the soft grass, beneath a green and wide-
spreading hawthorn bush, and held a hearty and jovial feast. After
this, one kept watch while the others napped, for it was a still and
sultry day.

Thus they passed the time pleasantly enow, but no guest such as they
desired showed his face in all the time that they lay hidden there. Many
passed along the dusty road in the glare of the sun: now it was a bevy
of chattering damsels merrily tripping along; now it was a plodding
tinker; now a merry shepherd lad; now a sturdy farmer; all gazing ahead
along the road, unconscious of the seven stout fellows that lay hidden
so near them. Such were the travelers along the way; but fat abbot, rich
esquire, or money-laden usurer came there none.

At last the sun began to sink low in the heavens; the light grew red and
the shadows long. The air grew full of silence, the birds twittered
sleepily, and from afar came, faint and clear, the musical song of the
milkmaid calling the kine home to the milking.

Then Stutely arose from where he was lying. "A plague of such ill
luck!" quoth he. "Here have we abided all day, and no bird worth the
shooting, so to speak, hath come within reach of our bolt. Had I gone
forth on an innocent errand, I had met a dozen stout priests or a score
of pursy money-lenders. But it is ever thus: the dun deer are never so
scarce as when one has a gray goose feather nipped betwixt the fingers.
Come, lads, let us pack up and home again, say I."

Accordingly, the others arose, and, coming forth from out the thicket,
they all turned their toes back again to Sherwood. After they had gone
some distance, Will Stutely, who headed the party, suddenly stopped.
"Hist!" quoth he, for his ears were as sharp as those of a five-year-old
fox. "Hark, lads! Methinks I hear a sound." At this all stopped and
listened with bated breath, albeit for a time they could hear nothing,
their ears being duller than Stutely's. At length they heard a faint and
melancholy sound, like someone in lamentation.

"Ha!" quoth Will Scarlet, "this must be looked into. There is someone in
distress nigh to us here."

"I know not," quoth Will Stutely, shaking his head doubtfully, "our