“I should like something to eat,"’ said the boy sadly.  “I have not had anything since breakfast.”

“That’s not so very long,” said Robin Hood.  “We have not had anything since breakfast.”

“But I mean since breakfast yesterday,” said young Robin piteously.

“What!” cried Little John.  “Why, the poor boy’s starved.  But we can soon mend that.  Come here!”

Young Robin’s first movement was to shrink from the big fellow, but he smiled down in such a bluff, amiable way, that the boy gave him his hands, and in an instant he was swung up and sitting six feet in the air upon the great fellow’s shoulder, and then rode off to an open-fronted shed-like place thatched with reeds, Robin Hood, with his bow over his shoulder, walking by the side.

“Here, Marian,” cried the outlaw, and young Robin’s heart gave a throb and he made a movement to get down to go to the sweet-faced woman who came hurriedly out, wide-eyed and wondering, in her green kirtle, her long soft naturally curling hair rippling down her back, but confined round her brow by a plain silver band in which a few woodland flowers were placed.

“Oh!  Robin,” she cried, flushing with pleasure; “who is this?”

“It is some one for you to take care of,” said the outlaw, who smiled at the bright look in the girl’s face.  “He is both hungry and tired, and his people ran away and left him alone in the forest.”

“Oh, my dear!” she cried, as Little John lightly jumped the boy down at her feet.  “Come along.”

Young Robin put his hand in hers and gave her a look full of trust and confidence, before turning to the two men, for all his troubles seemed over now.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” he said; “but are you bold Robin Hood and Little John, of whom I’ve heard my father talk?”

“I daresay we are the men he has talked about,” said the outlaw smiling; “but who is your father, and what did he say?”

“My father is the Sheriff of Nottingham,” said the boy, “and he said that he was going to catch you and your men some day, for you were very wicked and bad.  But he did not know how good and kind you are, and I shall tell him when you send me home.”

The two men exchanged glances with Maid Marian.

“We shall see,” said the outlaw; “but you are nearly starved, aren’t you?”

“Yes, very, very hungry,” said the boy, looking piteously at his new protector, whose hand he held.

“Hungry?” she cried.

“Yes, he has had nothing since yesterday morning; but you can cure that.”

“Oh, my dear, my dear!” cried the woman.  And she hurried young Robin beneath the shelter, and in a very short time he was smiling up in her face in his thankfulness, for she had placed before him a bowl of sweet new milk and some of the nicest bread he had ever tasted.

As he ate hungrily he had to answer Maid Marian’s questions about who he was and how he came there, which he did readily, and it did not strike him as being very dreadful that the mules and their loads had been seized, for old David had been very cross and severe with him for getting tired, and these people in the forest were most kind.