" From Sherwood it was but a step to
other forests, stretching league after league, and peopled by bands of
merry rovers, who laughed at the king's laws, killed and ate his
cherished deer at their own sweet wills, and defied sheriff and
man-at-arms, the dense forest depths affording them innumerable
lurking-places, their skill with the bow enabling them to defend their
domain from assault, and to exact tribute from their foes.
Such was the realm of Robin Hood, a realm of giant oaks and silvery
birches, a realm prodigal of trees, o'ercanopied with green leaves until
the sun had ado to send his rays downward, carpeted with brown moss and
emerald grasses, thicketed with a rich undergrowth of bryony and
clematis, prickly holly and golden furze, and a host of minor shrubs,
while some parts of the forest were so dense that, as Camden says, the
entangled branches of the thickly-set trees "were so twisted together,
that they hardly left room for a person to pass."
Here were innumerable hiding-places for the forest outlaws when hunted
too closely by their foes. They lacked not food; the forest was filled
with grazing deer and antlered stags. There was also abundance of
smaller game,--the hare, the coney, the roe; and of birds,--the
partridge, pheasant, woodcock, mallard, and heron.
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