Round Robin

“ His eye is large and dark and dewy; he wears a tight little red satin waistcoat on his full round breast and every tilt of his head, every flirt of his wing is instinct with dramatic significance. He is fascinatingly conceited—he burns with curiosity—he is determined to engage in social relations at almost any cost and his raging jealousy of attention paid to less worthy objects than himself drives him at times to efforts to charm and distract which are irresistible. An intimacy with a robin—an English robin—is a liberal education.
This particular one I knew in my rose-garden in Kent. ”

“ But the first grasp of the stranger, as he seized his arms above the elbows, instead of throwing them round his waist (as was, and is the unscientific practice of the Borders) , informed Robin that he had no common customer to deal with. Robin, as a wrestler, in a great measure trusted to mere strength and tripping. He knew nothing of turning an antagonist from his centre of gravity by a well-timed and well-directed touch. ”

“ Now stay and rest, for that is the best,
'Tis well ye should doe soe.'
'Noe rest we neede, on our roade we speede,
Till to Nottingham we get:'
'Thou tellst a lewde lye,' said Robin, 'For I
Can see that ye swinke and swet.'
The peddlers three crosst over the lee,
They did not list to fight:
'I charge you tarrie,' quod Robin, 'For marry,
This is my owne land by right.
'This is my manner and this is my parke,
I would have ye for to knowe;
Ye are bolde outlawes, I see by cause
Ye are so prest to goe.'
The peddlers three turned round to see
Who it might be they herd ”

“ By that time he had spent a hundred pounds, for he gave largely to the Knights and Squires he met, and great renown he had for his open-handedness.
But his men, who had been born under the shadow of the forest, could not live amid streets and houses. One by one they slipped away, till only Little John and Will Scarlett were left. Then Robin himself grew home-sick, and at the sight of some young men shooting thought upon the time when he was accounted the best archer in all England, and went straightway to the King and begged for leave to go on a pilgrimage to Bernisdale. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not being able to obtain audience of her, he is now leaving the house."
"Why do you make such a long story of it?" said Robin impatiently. "Describe him to me, and I will see to the rest."
"There is no hurry; he has a sweetheart among the maids, and will be some time about his adieux. I will show him to you, but you must get rid of that scarlet affair; what have you underneath? Oh! that is still worse; satin and velvet and diamonds! ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ I've never seen a young thing bloom as she does and I've seen many."
The cart was at the door and he stood in the shadows of the hall when a slight sound made him look up at the staircase. It was an ancient winding stone descent with its feudal hand rope for balustrade. Robin was coming down it in a loose white dress. Her morning face was wonderful. It was inevitable that he should ask himself where she had come from—what she had brought with her unknowing. She looked like a white blossom drifting from the bough—like a feather from a dove's wing floating downward to earth. ”

“ And Beryl escaped into the house.
Robin drove Dale back to the village. At the turn of the road near the House of Laughter she stopped the car that they might enjoy for a moment the twilight glow of the valley. Lights twinkled from the Mill houses across the river. From the House of Laughter came the sound of singing. A young crescent of a moon shone silvery against a purple blue sky.
"Little Red-Robin," cried Dale, suddenly, "Are you very sure?"
"Sure—of what?" Robin asked in a voice that trembled in spite of her.
"Someday you will be a rich girl. I am a—working-man. What will the world say? ”

“ I have known a raw youth, hitherto regarded as the hobbledehoy of the shooting-party and the pariah of the smoking-room, lord it among the ladies like a very lion; and I have seen the hero of a hundred fights, the master of men, the essence of intrepid resolution, stand quaking outside a drawing-room door. The début of Robin, then, I awaited with considerable interest. I expected on the whole to see him tongue-tied, especially before Dolly and Dilly. ”

“ Quick as a wink Robin sprang to his feet, and, at one bound, crossed the stream and the roadside, and plunged headlong into the thicket, without looking around, for he knew right well that that which had hissed so venomously beside his ear was a gray goose shaft, and that to tarry so much as a moment meant death. ”

“ Well, that trouble is done away with for me, sir; Robin he has got his mind at rest, and he won’t break out again. In a short while I am in hopes he’ll be quite what he used to be.”
“Matthew, it was my firm intention to continue your annuity to Robin,” spoke Lionel. “I am sorry the power to do so has been taken from me. You know that it will not rest with me now, but with Mr. Massingbird. I fear he is not likely to continue it.”
“Don’t regret it, sir. Robin, I say, is growing to be an industrious man again, and he can get a living well. ”

“ People knew of him who had not seen him and it became a custom with callers to say: "May we go into the rose-garden and see The Robin?" One of my American guests said he was uncanny and called him "The Goblin Robin." No one had ever seen a thing so curiously human—so much more than mere bird. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He sat down on the bank and unlaced his boots hurriedly, heedless of the fact that Robin had not answered. The socks followed the boots, and he stood barefooted on the bank, again begging her to come back. But Robin’s “red-haired streak,” as her schoolfellows had called it, was uppermost, although she began to realize that the water was too deep for wading. Had she been alone, she would have turned back to the bank: but not before the supercilious youngster who had called good old Danny a lout. “I’ll give it a yard more,” she muttered to herself. “It may not get any deeper than it is now.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ She is not of age. I can demand to see her. I can make her come home and stay with me while I see her through her 'trouble,' as pious people call it. She's got herself into trouble—just like a housemaid. I knew she would—I warned her," and her laugh was actually shrill.
It was inevitable—and ghastly—that he should suddenly see Robin with her white eyelids dropped over her basket of sewing by the window in the Tower room at Darreuch. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the week following his first venture into the trees Robin grew braver and stronger every day. He had no feathered acquaintance and kept close at home, hopping about under the rosebushes with a comical air of proprietorship, bathing in an old flower-pot saucer in his open cage and sitting sociably, for hours at a time, on Joy-of-Life's window ledge or Mary's, or on my window box for winter birds. He could feed himself by this time, but he still liked better to be fed. His table manners showed marked improvement from his "little monster" age. ”

“ He pinched himself sharply, but, finding he was awake, sat up in bed, while the other slumbered as peacefully as though he were safe and sound at home in Emmet Priory. "Now," quoth Robin to himself, "I wonder how this thing hath dropped into my bed during the night." So saying, he arose softly, so as not to waken the other, and looking about the room he espied the friar's clothes lying upon a bench near the wall. First he looked at the clothes, with his head on one side, and then he looked at the friar and slowly winked one eye. ”

“ Sweet was the greenwood as he walked along its paths, and bright the green and rustling leaves, amid which the little birds sang with might and main: and blithely Robin whistled as he trudged along, thinking of Maid Marian and her bright eyes, for at such times a youth's thoughts are wont to turn pleasantly upon the lass that he loves the best.
As thus he walked along with a brisk step and a merry whistle, he came suddenly upon some foresters seated beneath a great oak tree. ”

“ Partridge. “Old Mister Crow was telling me that he could remember when the country19 was all woods, and there were more of us partridges than there were men. Those must have been the ‘good old days!’”
“That farmer seems to think that he owns all the trees, and all the fences, and all the fields!” said Robert Robin. “The rude manner he uses towards his horses and the way he slaps them with the straps, and the way he shouts at them is very disgusting to me! If I were a great big horse, I would not let a little man, only one fifth of my size, boss me around like that farmer does his big horses!” ”

“ CONCERNING THE END OF A PIG “Coming out, Robin?”
“Too hot, I think,” Robin said, lazily. “Where do you want to go?”
“Oh, anywhere. What’s the good of staying in the house?”
“I don’t see much good in going out, either, in this weather. There isn’t a trout in the creek that would rise, on a day like this, and you know you wouldn’t get a shot at a rabbit until the evening. Unless you want to be like all the other tourists, and shoot parrots and jackasses!”
This was a calculated insult, and Barry responded by a well-aimed cushion. Robin caught it deftly and tucked it under her head. ”

“ Hurst caught his wrist and held it as in a vice.
“No!” she said. “You are all they have—and you can do no good. Oh, pray for her—pray that she may be quick!”
Roany was at the gate, pawing, uttering terrified whinnying. Robin flung it open, the iron latch scorching her fingers, and the horse galloped madly past her, the thudding of his hoofs dying away towards the creek. Robin ran back, more slowly than she had come. She knew that she was very nearly done.
Then the smoke seemed to split in two, showing the fire as is whirled down upon Hill Farm. ”