"But you thought so yourself," began Davy, when, to his distress, the Goblin suddenly faded into a dull pinkish color, and then disappeared altogether. Davy looked about him, and found that the Cockalorum and the dancing farmers had also disappeared, and that he was quite alone in a dense wood. [Illustration: "COCKALORUM HEMMED IN BY A RING OF PITCHFORKS."] CHAPTER VII. THE MOVING FOREST. "Oh, dear!" cried Davy, speaking aloud in his distress, "I do wish people and things wouldn't change about so! Just so soon as ever I get to a place it goes away, and I'm somewhere else!"--and the little boy's heart began to beat rapidly as he looked about him; for the wood was very dark and solemn and still. Presently the trees and bushes directly before him moved silently apart and showed a broad path beautifully overgrown with soft turf; and as he stepped forward upon it the trees and bushes beyond moved silently aside in their turn, and the path grew before him, as he walked along, like a green carpet slowly unrolling itself through the wood. It made him a little uneasy, at first, to find that the trees behind him came together again, quietly blotting out the path; but then he thought, "It really doesn't matter, so long as I don't want to go back;" and so he walked along very contentedly. By and by the path seemed to give itself a shake, and, turning abruptly around a large tree, brought Davy suddenly upon a little butcher's shop, snugly buried in the wood. There was a sign on the shop, reading, "ROBIN HOOD: VENISON," and Robin himself, wearing a clean white apron over his suit of Lincoln green, stood in the door-way, holding a knife and steel, as though he were on the lookout for customers. As he caught sight of Davy he said, "Steaks? Chops?" in an inquiring way, quite like an every-day butcher. "Venison is deer, isn't it?" said Davy, looking up at the sign. "Not at all," said Robin Hood, promptly. "It's the cheapest meat about here." "Oh, I didn't mean that," replied Davy; "I meant that it comes off of a deer." "Wrong again!" said Robin Hood, triumphantly. "It comes _on_ a deer. I cut it off myself. Steaks? Chops?" "No, I thank you," said Davy, giving up the argument. "I don't think I want anything to eat just now." "Then what did you come here for?" said Robin Hood, peevishly. "What's the good, I'd like to know, of standing around and staring at an honest tradesman?" "Well, you see," said Davy, beginning to feel that he had, somehow, been very rude in coming there at all, "I didn't know you were this sort of person at all. I always thought you were an archer, like--like William Tell, you know." [Illustration: "'VENISON IS DEER, ISN'T IT?' SAID DAVY, LOOKING UP AT THE SIGN."]