s feet and wept; and between every
sob it was, "Go not, brother, for my fault! Go not, brother, for my
fault!" or else, "Robin, Robin, dost not love me enough to forgive me so
little?" and then, "If thou didst but love me a little, thou couldst
forgive me much." But he stepped free of her hands and went his ways,
and my lady lay with her head where his feet had been, and was still.

Then Marian, who was very wroth with me for my part in the matter, did
up with her nursling in her own proper strong arms (for she was aye a
strong lass, that being one o' the chief reasons for which I had sought
her in marriage--having had, as should all men, an eye to my posterity.
It was a great cross to me, as may be thought, to find that all my
forethought had been in vain, and that while Turnip, the farrier, had
eight as fine lads as one would care to father, of a puny wench that my
Marian could have slipped in her pocket, Mistress Butter presented me
with no children, weakly or healthy). But, as I have said, Marian, in
her own arms, did carry my lady up-stairs to her chamber, and laid her
on the day-bed.

And by-and-by she opes her eyes (for Marian agreed that I sate on the
threshold), and says she, putting out her hand half-fearful-like, "Is't
thou, brother?"

"Nay, honey," saith Marian; "it is I, thy Marian, thy nurse."

Then said my lady, "Ay, nurse; but my brother, he is below--is't not
so?" But when Marian shook her head, my lady sate up on the day-bed and
caught hold of her short curls, and cried out, "I have banished him! I
have made him an outlaw! I have banished him!" And for days she lay like
one whose soul was sped.

Well, the young lord came not back, nor would he write; so we knew not
whether he were alive or dead. Yet were Marian and myself not
unhopeful, for full oft did the heady boy find some such cause of
disagreement with his sister to abide apart from her. But when we saw
that in truth he came not back, and that week sped after week, and month
did follow month, and still no tidings, we had perforce to acknowledge
that the young lord was indeed gone to return no more.

The Lady Margaret, in her loneliness, grew into many strange ways. She
did outride any man in the county, and she had a blue-roan by the name
of Robin Hood; which same, methinks, no man in or out o' th' county
would 'a' cared to bestride. She would walk over to Pebworth ('piping
Pebworth,' as Master Shakespeare hath dubbed it) and back again, a