Sit still, will you? I never saw such a boy:
wriggling about like a young eel.”
“I can’t help it, David,” said the
little fellow so roughly spoken to by a sour-looking
serving man; “the horse does jog so, and it’s
so slippery. If I didn’t keep moving I
should go off.”
“You’ll soon go off if you don’t
keep a little quieter,” growled the man angrily,
“for I’ll pitch you among the bushes.”
“No, you won’t,” said the boy laughing.
“You daren’t do so.”
“What! I’ll let you see, young master.
I want to know why they couldn’t let you have
a donkey or a mule, instead of hanging you on behind
me.”
“Aunt said I should be safer behind you,”
said the boy; “but I’m not. It’s
so hard to hold on by your belt, because you’re
so——”
“Look here. Master Robin, I get enough
o’ that from the men. If you say I’m
so fat, I’ll pitch you into the first patch o’
brambles we come to.”
“But you are fat,” said the boy; “and
you dare not. If you did my father would punish
you.”
“He wouldn’t know.”
“Oh! yes he would, David,” said the little
fellow, confidently; “the other men would tell
him.”
“They wouldn’t know,” said the man
with a chuckle. “I say, aren’t you
afraid?”
“No,” said the boy. “What
of, tumbling off? I could jump.”
“’Fraid of going through this great dark
forest?”
“No. What is there to be afraid of?”
“Robbers and thieves, and all sorts of horrid
things. Why, we might meet Robin Hood and his
men.”
“I should like that,” said the boy.
“What?” cried the serving man, and he
looked round at the great oak and beech trees through
which the faintly marked road lay, and then forward
and backward at the dozen mules, laden with packs of
cloth, every two of which were led by an armed man.
“You’d like that?”
“Yes,” said the boy. “I want
to see him.”
“Here’s a pretty sort of a boy,”
said the man. “Why, he’d eat you
like a radish.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” said the boy,
“because I’m not a bit like a radish;
and I say, David, do turn your belt round.”
“Turn my belt round?” said the man, in
astonishment. “What for?”
“So as to put the sword the other side.
It does keep on banging my legs so. They’re
quite bruised.”
“It’s me that’ll be bruised, with
you punching and sticking your fisties into my belt.
Put your legs on the other side. I can’t
move my sword. I might want it to fight, you
know.”
“Who with?” asked the boy.
“Robbers after the bales o’ cloth.
I shall be precious glad to get ’em safe to
the town, and be back home again with whole bones.
Sit still, will you! Wriggling again!
How am I to get you safe home to your father if you
keep sidling off like that? Want me to hand
you over to one of the men?”
