"Are you sure that the charm is not love?" asked Robin Hood. "But let us talk of other matters. Here we must turn off from the road, and I take you through paths in Sherwood unknown to any justice, either north or south of Trent. Although I could well trust to your knightly honour, and to your regard for the laws of hospitality, yet I must here exact from you a promise, which every one makes who is led where I lead you. It is, that, upon your honour as true man and good knight, everything you see or hear from this spot till I lead you back to the high road again, shall be forgotten as soon as you quit me, and revealed to no one--no, not to your confessor."
The notions which then existed of knightly honour caused Hugh de Monthermer to give the promise exacted from him without the slightest hesitation; and, that having been done, the bold forester led him on through one of those narrow lanes which we have before mentioned, where only one horse could advance at a time. This path continued for about half a mile, and opened out into one of the wildest parts of the forest, through which there seemed to be no track of any kind.
It was not one of those spots properly called coverts--which name was only applied to woods so thick that the branches of the trees touched each other,--but, on the contrary, it was a sort of wild chase, scattered with fine old oaks, and encumbered with an immense quantity of brushwood. There were patches of green grass to be seen here and there, indeed, and once or twice a sandy bank peeped out amongst the bushes, while two or three large ponds, and a small silver stream appeared glistening at about half a mile's distance from the spot where the horsemen issued forth from the lane.
It was as lovely a forest scene as ever the eye rested upon, for the ground was broken, and a thousand beautiful accidents diversified the landscape. Every here and there a tall mound of earth, sometimes covered with turf, sometimes rounded with brushwood, would rise up, bearing aloft a graceful clump of trees, while the setting sun, pouring its long horizontal rays across the wild track, cast lengthened shadows over the ground below, and brightened all the higher points with gleams of purple light.
Beyond, again, at the distance of not less than two miles and a half, and considerably lower than the spot where the two journeyers stood, reappeared the thicker coverts of the forest, rolling like the waves of a deep green sea in the calm and mellow rays of the departing day, while a slight mist here and there marked out its separate lines, growing fainter and more faint, till some distant objects, like towers and pinnacles--they might be clouds--they might be parts of a far city--closed the scene, and united the earth with the sky.
Here all trace of a road ended, but without the slightest hesitation, bold Robin Hood led the way onward, threading with unerring steps the different green lines which separated one mass of brushwood from another, guiding his companion under one tall bank, and round another high mound, between the bolls of old oaks and across the dancing stream, without even once meeting a check, or having to pause in his whole course through the woody labyrinth.
At length, however, the sun went down, and the twilight just sufficed to show Hugh de Monthermer his way, as they had reached the lowest spot of the chase, and approached a clump of several acres of thick covert. There was a path at one angle by which Robin and his companion entered, and winding on in darkness for some way--for the trees excluded the whole of the remaining rays--they at length emerged into an open space in the centre, where they could again see, though faintly, the objects around them.
Opposite to the mouth of the road by which they came, was the first building that they had seen upon their ride. It was of a very peculiar architecture, consisting of round stones piled upon one another, and cemented together, being what, I believe, is called rubble, while the windows and doors alone, presented hewn stone lintels and transoms, with short small columns supporting each. A quantity of ivy had grown over the greater part of the building; but there were lights within, and for a moment Robin Hood drew up his horse as if to listen.
"Here," he said, at length, "lived and reigned a Saxon Thane when the trees of Sherwood were yet young. His bones lie in the little chapel behind. The memory of the place has passed away as well as the people that inhabited it, and it has come to be the abode of a child of the same race, when outlawed for the love of his country."