COLD WINTER had passed and spring had come.

No leafy thickness had yet clad the woodlands, but the budding leaves hung like a tender mist about the trees.

In the open country the meadow lands lay a sheeny green, the cornfields a dark velvety color, for they were thick and soft with the growing blades.

The plowboy shouted in the sun, and in the purple new-turned furrows flocks of birds hunted for fat worms.

All the broad moist earth smiled in the warm light, and each little green hill clapped its hand for joy.
On a deer's hide, stretched on the ground in the open in front of the greenwood tree, sat Robin Hood basking in the sun like an old dog fox.
Leaning back with his hands clasped about his knees, he lazily watched Little John rolling a stout bowstring from long strands of hempen thread, wetting the palms of his hands ever and anon, and rolling the cord upon his thigh.