Thus they rode slowly onward, talking about these old, familiar things; old and yet new, for they found more in them than they had ever thought of before.  Thus at last they came to the open glade, and the broad, wide-spreading greenwood tree which was their home for so many years.  Neither of the two spoke when they stood beneath that tree.  Robin looked all about him at the well-known things, so like what they used to be and yet so different; for, where once was the bustle of many busy fellows was now the quietness of solitude; and, as he looked, the woodlands, the greensward, and the sky all blurred together in his sight through salt tears, for such a great yearning came upon him as he looked on these things (as well known to him as the fingers of his right hand) that he could not keep back the water from his eyes.

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.  Onward he plunged, crackling and rending, as the wild boar rushes through the underbrush.  Little recked he of thorns and briers that scratched his flesh and tore his clothing, for all he thought of was to get, by the shortest way, to the greenwood glade whence he knew the sound of the bugle horn came.  Out he burst from the covert, at last, a shower of little broken twigs falling about him, and, without pausing a moment, rushed forward and flung himself at Robin’s feet.  Then he clasped his arms around the master’s knees, and all his body was shaken with great sobs; neither could Robin nor Allan a Dale speak, but stood looking down at Little John, the tears rolling down their cheeks.

While they thus stood, seven royal rangers rushed into the open glade and raised a great shout of joy at the sight of Robin; and at their head was Will Stutely.  Then, after a while, came four more, panting with their running, and two of these four were Will Scathelock and Midge, the Miller; for all of these had heard the sound of Robin Hood’s horn.  All these ran to Robin and kissed his hands and his clothing, with great sound of weeping.