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.
But Robin had not gone more than three furlongs in that direction when
he came suddenly to the brow of a hill, and saw beneath him another band
of the King's men seated in the shade along the roadside in the valley
beneath. Then he paused not a moment, but, seeing that they had not
caught sight of him, he turned and ran back whence he had come, knowing
that it was better to run the chance of escaping those fellows that were
yet in the thickets than to rush into the arms of those in the valley.
So back he ran with all speed, and had gotten safely past the thickets,
when the seven men came forth into the open road. They raised a great
shout when they saw him, such as the hunter gives when the deer breaks
cover, but Robin was then a quarter of a mile and more away from them,
coursing over the ground like a greyhound.
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