That morning he had slung his good old bugle horn over his shoulder, and
now, with the yearning, came a great longing to sound his bugle once
more. He raised it to his lips; he blew a blast. "Tirila, lirila," the
sweet, clear notes went winding down the forest paths, coming back again
from the more distant bosky shades in faint echoes of sound, "Tirila,
lirila, tirila, lirila," until it faded away and was lost.
Now it chanced that on that very morn Little John was walking through a
spur of the forest upon certain matters of business, and as he paced
along, sunk in meditation, the faint, clear notes of a distant bugle
horn came to his ear. As leaps the stag when it feels the arrow at its
heart, so leaped Little John when that distant sound met his ear. All
the blood in his body seemed to rush like a flame into his cheeks as he
bent his head and listened. Again came the bugle note, thin and clear,
and yet again it sounded. Then Little John gave a great, wild cry of
yearning, of joy, and yet of grief, and, putting down his head, he
dashed into the thicket.
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