The Greatest Adventure Books for Children. Люси Мод Монтгомери

something had sped from that body, even as the winged arrow sped from the bow.

      For some minutes Little John sat motionless, but presently he laid that which he held gently down, then, folding the hands upon the breast and covering up the face, he turned upon his heel and left the room without a word or a sound.

      Upon the steep stairway he met the Prioress and some of the chief among the sisters. To them he spoke in a deep, quivering voice, and said he, "An ye go within a score of feet of yonder room, I will tear down your rookery over your heads so that not one stone shall be left upon another. Bear my words well in mind, for I mean them." So saying, he turned and left them, and they presently saw him running rapidly across the open, through the falling of the dusk, until he was swallowed up by the forest.

      The early gray of the coming morn was just beginning to lighten the black sky toward the eastward when Little John and six more of the band came rapidly across the open toward the nunnery. They saw no one, for the sisters were all hidden away from sight, having been frightened by Little John's words. Up the stone stair they ran, and a great sound of weeping was presently heard. After a while this ceased, and then came the scuffling and shuffling of men's feet as they carried a heavy weight down the steep and winding stairs. So they went forth from the nunnery, and, as they passed through the doors thereof, a great, loud sound of wailing arose from the glade that lay all dark in the dawning, as though many men, hidden in the shadows, had lifted up their voices in sorrow.

      Thus died Robin Hood, at Kirklees Nunnery, in fair Yorkshire, with mercy in his heart toward those that had been his undoing; for thus he showed mercy for the erring and pity for the weak through all the time of his living.

      His yeomen were scattered henceforth, but no great ill befell them thereafter, for a more merciful sheriff and one who knew them not so well succeeding the one that had gone, and they being separated here and there throughout the countryside, they abided in peace and quietness, so that many lived to hand down these tales to their children and their children's children.

      A certain one sayeth that upon a stone at Kirklees is an old inscription. This I give in the ancient English in which it was written, and thus it runs:

      HEAR UNDERNEAD DIS LAITL STEAN LAIS ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGTUN

       NEA ARCIR VER AS HIE SAE GEUD AN PIPL KAULD IM ROBIN HEUD SICK

       UTLAWS AS HI AN IS MEN VIL ENGLAND NIDIR SI AGEN OBIIT

       24 KAL. DEKEMBRIS 1247.

      And now, dear friend, we also must part, for our merry journeyings have ended, and here, at the grave of Robin Hood, we turn, each going his own way.

Pinocchio’s Adventure in Wonderland

      (Carlo Collodi)

       Table of Contents

       CHAPTER 1

       CHAPTER 2

       CHAPTER 3

       CHAPTER 4

       CHAPTER 5

       CHAPTER 6

       CHAPTER 7

       CHAPTER 8

       CHAPTER 9

       CHAPTER 10

       CHAPTER 11

       CHAPTER 12

       CHAPTER 13

       CHAPTER 14

       CHAPTER 15

       CHAPTER 16

       CHAPTER 17

       CHAPTER 18

       CHAPTER 19

       CHAPTER 20

       CHAPTER 21

       CHAPTER 22

       CHAPTER 23

       CHAPTER 24

       CHAPTER 25

       CHAPTER 26

       CHAPTER 27

       CHAPTER 28

       CHAPTER 29

       CHAPTER 30

       CHAPTER 31

       CHAPTER 32

       CHAPTER 33

       CHAPTER 34

       CHAPTER 35

       CHAPTER 36

      CHAPTER 1

       Table of Contents

      How it happened that Mastro Cherry, carpenter, found a piece of wood that wept and laughed like a child.

      Centuries ago there lived —

      “A king!” my little readers