Tommy Toby went hunting.
“I want to be able to tell people,” he said, “that I have hunted in Sherwood Forest, the royal hunting-ground of English kings.”
“In midsummer?” asked Master Lewis. “I fancy if you were to use a gun in the Forest of Sherwood, you might make a longer vacation abroad than you intended.”
“I do not intend to use a gun. I have bought me a bow and some arrows.”
“Let me see them,” said Master Lewis. “They look very harmless, certainly.” Master Lewis seemed to hesitate about making further objections.
Just what came of Tommy’s hunting we cannot state at this stage of our narrative. He left the boys at the hotel, bow and arrows in hand, and saying as a word of parting,—
“‘Let’s go to the wood, said Richard to Robin.’”
He evidently went outside of the city into the wooded district, that was a part of old Sherwood Forest. When Master Lewis found that he had really gone out of the place he looked troubled, and said:—
“I should have prevented it.”
Tommy returned late on the evening of the same day after a ten hours’ absence. He certainly looked like a modern hunter, for he was empty handed, and his clothes were in a very disarranged condition.