was easy to wander on and forget all about finding the way back
through the sun-dappled shades.

And so it happened that one morning when the outlaw band had gone
off hunting, to bring back a couple of fat deer for Robin Hood's
larder, young Robin started by himself, bow in hand, down one of
the lovely beech glades, and had soon gone farther than he had been
before.

The squirrels dropped the beech mast and dashed away through the
trees, to chop and scold at him; the rabbits started from out of
the ferns and raced away fast, showing the under part of their
white cotton tails, before they plunged into their shady burrows;
and twice over, as the boy softly passed out of the shade into some
sunny opening, he came upon little groups of deer--beautiful
large-eyed thin-legged does, with their fawns--grazing peacefully
on the soft grass which grew in patches between the tufts of golden
prickly furze, for they were safe enough, the huntsmen being gone
in search of the lordly bucks, with their tall flattened horns if
they were fallow deer, small, round, and sharply pointed if they
were roes.

There was always something fresh to see, and he who went slowly and
softly through the forest saw most. At such times as this young
Robin would stop short to watch the grazing deer and fawns with
their softly dappled hides, till all at once a pair of sharp blue
eyes would spy him out, and the jay who owned those eyes would set
up his soft speckled crest, show his fierce black moustachios, and
shout an alarm again in a harsh voice--"Here's a boy! here's a
boy!" and the does would leave off eating, throw up their heads,