Robin

“ He then gave Robin so hearty a knock on the crown, that the blood ran trickling down to his ears. Robin now engaged more fiercely, and laid on his blows so thick and fast, that he made his adversary's coat smoke as if it had been on fire; but the stranger waxing most furious and strong, at length gave Robin such a terrible side-blow, that it quite beat him down and tumbled him into the brook. Then, in laughter, he called out to his fallen foe, "Prithee, where art thou now, my good fellow!" "Why, faith," said Robin, "I swim with the tide, as every man should do." ”

“ But after Robin left the little dell he strode along merrily, singing as he went; and so blithe was he and such a stout beggar, and, withal, so fresh and clean, that every merry lass he met had a sweet word for him and felt no fear, while the very dogs, that most times hate the sight of a beggar, snuffed at his legs in friendly wise and wagged their tails pleasantly; for dogs know an honest man by his smell, and an honest man Robin was—in his own way. ”

“ That night Robin lay in the dark thinking of the dream. Had there been a dream—or had it only been like the other things one dreamed about? Sometimes an eerie fearfulness beset her vaguely. If there were letters each day! But letters belonged to a time when rivers of blood did not run through the world. She sat up in bed and clasped her hands round her knees gazing into the blackness which seemed to enclose and shut her in. It had been true! She could see the wood and the foxglove spires piercing the ferns. She could hear the ferns rustle and the little bird sounds and stirrings. ”

“ Another woman than Robin counted over his charms and made a tender list of them, wondering at each one. As a young male pheasant in mating time dons finer gloss and brilliancy of plumage, perhaps he too bloomed and all unconscious developed added colour and inches and gallant swing of tread. As people turned half astart to look at Robin bending over her desk or walking about among them in her modest dress, so also did they turn to look after him as he went in springing march along the streets. ”

“ Everybody knows Robin. He is part and parcel of springtime, chief herald, chief poet, and lord high reveller of that joyful season. It is a merry day when the first flock of Robins turns itself loose on the home landscape. There is great bustle and stir of activity. Some scurry about to note the changes wrought by winter, some wrestle with the early and unsophisticated worm, while others voice their gladness from the fence-post, the gable, the tree-top, anywhere. ”

“ He wants to do all the talking himself."
"How does he do the boom-boom?" said Robin, wild with curiosity. For he thought he would like to learn how to boom-boom himself. It would silence Mrs. Robin when she scolded him.
But the Water-Lady said, "Sh-s-s-h, go away!" and disappeared inside. She was all in pale pink and gold, like the cuckoo-flowers and king-cups.
Robin wouldn't go away. He suddenly became very obstinate, and determined to find out what the Last-of-the-Bitterns looked like. And he squeezed, and shoved, and slithered between the bulrushes. ”

“ I wager that thou causest no beast to die, with or without the aid of Our Lady."
Then Robin took his good yew bow in his hand, and placing the tip at his instep, he strung it right deftly; then he nocked a broad clothyard arrow and, raising the bow, drew the gray goose feather to his ear; the next moment the bowstring rang and the arrow sped down the glade as a sparrowhawk skims in a northern wind. High leaped the noblest hart of all the herd, only to fall dead, reddening the green path with his heart's blood. ”

“ Tall was Robin, but taller was the stranger by a head and a neck, for he was seven feet in height. Broad was Robin across the shoulders, but broader was the stranger by twice the breadth of a palm, while he measured at least an ell around the waist.
"Nevertheless," said Robin to himself, "I will baste thy hide right merrily, my good fellow;" then, aloud, "Lo, here is my good staff, lusty and tough. Now wait my coming, an thou darest, and meet me an thou fearest not. Then we will fight until one or the other of us tumble into the stream by dint of blows." ”

“ When the Corn Engrosser had told this, Robin broke into a roar of laughter and, laying his hands upon the bridle rein, stopped the sad-looking nag. "Stay, good friend," quoth he, between bursts of merriment, "thou art the slyest old fox that e'er I saw in all my life!—In the soles of his shoon, quotha!—If ever I trust a poor-seeming man again, shave my head and paint it blue! ”

“ Robin, awake!
O, master mine, farewell!
[Exit lingeringly through the casement.]
ROBIN
[Robin is dimly seen in the mouth of the alcove. He stretches out his hands blindly in the dark.]
Marian! Why do you call to me in dreams?
Why do you call me? I must go. What's this? ”

“ MELISSA: How think ye of this, Robin?
ROBIN: By Cupid, we are so deep in love that we are like to drown of love and we be not wary. Here hath my lovely jowlopped-crested brother so beset poor Robin with Love and self and Robin, that Robin kens not which is Love, Love's self or himself. ”

“ At this message Robin bent his knee.
'I love no man in all the world
So well as I do my King';
he cried, 'and Sir Abbot, for thy tidings, which fill my heart with joy, to-day thou shalt dine with me, for love of my King.' Then he led the King into an open place, and Robin took a horn and blew it loud, and at its blast seven-score of young men came speedily to do his will.
'They are quicker to do his bidding than my men are to do mine,' said the King to himself. ”

“ After a mournful night the mother left the nest early in the morning, unwilling to relinquish the hope which still remained of finding Robin again; but having spent an hour in this manner, she returned to her mate, who was comforting his little ones.
"Come," said he, "let us take a flight if we sit lamenting here for ever, it will be to no purpose: the evils which befall us must be borne, and the more quietly we submit to them, the lighter they will be. If poor Robin is dead, he will suffer no more: and if he is not, so much as we fly about, it is a chance but what we get tidings of him. ”

“ No, Robin, young as I am, I have learned better things. The linnet would look ill tricked out in parrot's feathers. Not but I think the bravery becoming, though, perhaps, not to me;—surely no, if you like it not! But whither are you going? only tell me that. Alas! that dark and black-browed boy has so confounded me, that I know not what I say. The last night's fray has sore distressed me too:—you know it all. ”

“ Robin could run up and down every cliff in the neigh [35] bourhood like a monkey—could lie on the waters, and sport amid the breakers, with the activity of a cub-seal—dive like an otter; and, as nature generally makes up in some way or other for defects similar to those so conspicuous in the widow's son, she had gifted him with so sweet a voice, that the fishermen frequently rested on their oars beneath "Gull's Nest" crag, to listen to Robin's wild and mournful ballads, which full often mingled with the murmur of the small waves as they rippled on the strand. ”

“ It seemed to Robin a wonderful thing to meet a girl who could talk in clear simple words about what she thought and felt about such puzzling sensations as came over a man when he looked at the vastness and wonder and mystery of the world he lived in. That quality of wonder, of space and time in which man danced his little turn and danced no more, in which there seemed much disorder but in which there seemed also a Law and a Pattern and a Purpose if a man could only discover what it was, had troubled Robin for a long time. ”

“ In the midst stood a stranger, and Robin bade him go back and let him go over. 'I am no man of yours,' was all the answer Robin got, and in anger he drew his bow and fitted an arrow to it. 'Would you shoot a man who has no arms but a staff?' asked the stranger in scorn; and with shame Robin laid down his bow, and unbuckled an oaken stick at his side. 'We will fight till one of us falls into the water,' he said; and fight they did, till the stranger planted a blow so well that Robin rolled over into the river. ”

“ But Robin knew the ground better than they did, so crawling here, stooping there, and, anon, running across some little open, he soon left them far behind, coming out, at last, upon another road about eight hundred paces distant from the one he had left. Here he stood for a moment, listening to the distant shouts of the seven men as they beat up and down in the thickets like hounds that had lost the scent of the quarry. Then, buckling his belt more tightly around his waist, he ran fleetly down the road toward the eastward and Sherwood. ”

“ MARIAN
I am glad you love him, sir.
ROBIN
But you're not eating!
Your helmet's locked and barred! Will you not raise
Your visor?
KNIGHT
[Laughs.]
Ha! ha! ha! You see I am trapped!
I did not wish to raise it! Hunger and thirst
Break down all masks and all disguises, Robin.
[He rises and removes his helmet, revealing the face of Richard Cœur de Lion.]
ROBIN
The King! ”

“ Robin had noticed as they passed that the summer stream was low.
“Why, thou brawling mongrel,” said Robin, “that whether thou be thief, friar, or ferryman, or an ill-mixed compound of all three, passes conjecture, though I judge thee to be simple thief, what barkest thou at thus? Villain, there is clink of brass for thee. Dost thou see this coin? Dost thou hear this music? Look and listen: for touch thou shalt not: my minstrelship defies thee. Thou shalt carry me on thy back over the water, and receive nothing but a cracked sconce for thy trouble.” ”

“ I shall not ask pardon of those critics who are always canting about genius—and who would probably deny this gift to the Robin, because he cannot cry like a chicken or squall like a cat, and because with his charming strains he does not mingle all sorts of discords and incongruous sounds—for assigning to the Robin the highest rank as a singing-bird. ”

“ To homesick Robin he brought news of the family who mourned him as dead. He stole a silky tress of Janet’s fair hair, and wondered to see the boy weep over it; for brotherly affection is a sentiment which never yet penetrated the heart of a brownie. The dull little sprite would gladly have helped the poor lad to his freedom, but told him that only on one night of the year was there the least hope, and that was on Hallow-e’en, when the whole nation of fairies ride in procession through the streets of earth. ”

“ At this the stout Friar looked upon Robin for a long time, his head on one side, and with a most waggish twist to his face; then he slowly winked his right eye. "Nay, good youth," said he gently, "I doubt not that thou art in haste with thine affairs, yet thou dost think nothing of mine. Thine are of a carnal nature; mine are of a spiritual nature, a holy work, so to speak; moreover, mine affairs do lie upon the other side of this stream. I see by thy quest of this same holy recluse that thou art a good young man and most reverent to the cloth. ”

“ In the green valley of the Yarrow, near the castle-keep of Norham, dwelt an honest, sonsy little family, whose only grief was an unhappy son, named Robin.
Janet, with jimp form, bonnie eyes, and cherry cheeks, was the best of daughters; the boys, Sandie and Davie, were swift-footed, brave, kind, and obedient; but Robin, the youngest, had a stormy temper, and, when his will was crossed, he became as reckless as a reeling hurricane. Once, in a passion, he drove two of his father’s “kye,” or cattle, down a steep hill to their death. ”

“ The Knight shook his head with a faint smile, but for all that, Robin's words made him more blithe of heart, for in truth hope, be it never so faint, bringeth a gleam into darkness, like a little rushlight that costeth but a groat. ”

“ It is a somewhat portentous thing to realise that a newborn human creature can only know what it is taught. To Robin the Lady Downstairs was merely a radiant and beautiful being of whom one might catch a glimpse through a door, or if one pressed one's face against the window pane at the right moment. On the very rare occasions when the Lady appeared on the threshold of the day-nursery, Robin stood and stared with immense startled eyes and answered in a whisper the banal little questions put to her. ”

“ But the pious Robin still wears upon his breast the beautiful feathers stained red with his Master's blood. And all that the Saviour foretold of him has come true. He is the blessed bird whom children everywhere love and of whom they still repeat these old verses:—
THE ROBIN WHO WAS AN INDIAN
HE name of Robin makes us think at once of the jolliest and most sociable of all our little brother birds. In every land the name is a favorite, and wherever he goes he brings happiness and kind feeling.
The American Robin is not the same bird as his English cousin, though both have red breasts. ”

“ Robin was as strong as a mountain-goat; and his strength was put to the task of threshing rye, grinding oats and corn, or drawing water from a brook.
Every night, troops of gay fairies and plodding brownies stole off on a visit to the upper world, leaving Robin and his companions in ever deeper despair. Poor Robin! he was fain to sing ”

“ So Robin straightway left the Beggar, who, upon his part, went to a budding lime bush back of the hedge, and there spread his feast upon the grass and roasted his eggs upon a little fagot fire, with a deftness gained by long labor in that line. After a while back came Robin bearing a goodly skin of ale upon his shoulder, which he laid upon the grass. Then, looking upon the feast spread upon the ground--and a fair sight it was to look upon-- he slowly rubbed his hand over his stomach, for to his hungry eyes it seemed the fairest sight that he had beheld in all his life. ”