few stout fellows lay lazily beneath the shade of the tree, in the soft
afternoon, passing jests among themselves and telling merry stories,
with laughter and mirth.

All the air was laden with the bitter fragrance of the May, and all the
bosky shades of the woodlands beyond rang with the sweet song of birds--
the throstle cock, the cuckoo, and the wood pigeon--and with the song of
birds mingled the cool sound of the gurgling brook that leaped out of
the forest shades, and ran fretting amid its rough, gray stones across
the sunlit open glade before the trysting tree. And a fair sight was
that halfscore of tall, stout yeomen, all clad in Lincoln green, lying
beneath the broad-spreading branches of the great oak tree, amid the
quivering leaves of which the sunlight shivered and fell in dancing
patches upon the grass.

Suddenly Robin Hood smote his knee.

"By Saint Dunstan," quoth he, "I had nigh forgot that quarter-day cometh
on apace, and yet no cloth of Lincoln green in all our store. It must be
looked to, and that in quick season. Come, busk thee, Little John!
Stir those lazy bones of thine, for thou must get thee straightway to
our good gossip, the draper Hugh Longshanks of Ancaster. Bid him send
us straightway twentyscore yards of fair cloth of Lincoln green; and
mayhap the journey may take some of the fat from off thy bones, that
thou hast gotten from lazy living at our dear Sheriff's."

"Nay," muttered Little John (for he had heard so much upon this score
that he was sore upon the point), "nay, truly, mayhap I have more flesh
upon my joints than I once had, yet, flesh or no flesh, I doubt not that
I could still hold my place and footing upon a narrow bridge against