oman ought to sit and spin and not be dancing like a young girl.
Oh, but it's Master Robin! Glad am I to set eyes on you, Master Robin.
Come in, and I'll throw my best cloak over the little stool for a
cushion. Don't be long standing on the threshold, Master Robin."

"It'll mayhap come to pass that I'll wish I had something to stand on,"
said Robin, grimly, "for the proud bishop is in the forest, and he's
after me with all his men. It's night and day that he's been following
me, and now he's caught me surely. You've no meal chest, have you, and
you've no press, and you've no feather-bed that'll hide me? There's but
the one wee bit room, and there's not even a mousehole."

The little woman's heart beat fast. What could she do?

"I mind me well of a Saturday night," said she, "when I'd but little
firewood and it was bitter cold, that you and your men brought me such
fine logs as the great folks at the hall don't have; and then you came
in yourself and gave me a pair of shoon and some brand-new hosen, all
soft and fine and woolly--I don't believe the king himself has such a
pair--oh, Master Robin, I've thought of something. Give me your mantle
of green and your fine gray tunic, and do you put on my kirtle and
jacket and gown, and tie my red and blue kerchief over your head--you
gave it to me yourself, you did; it was on Easter Day in the
morning--and do you sit down at the wheel and spin. See, you put your
foot on the treadle _so_, to turn the wheel, and you twist the flax with
your fingers _so_. Don't you get up, but just turn the wheel and grumble
and mumble to yourself."

It was not long before the bishop and all his men came riding up to the
little old woman's house. The bishop thrust open the door and called:--

"Old woman, what have you done with Robin Hood?" but Robin sat grumbling
and mumbling at the wheel and answered never a word to the proud bishop.

"She's mayhap daft," said one of the bishop's men. "We'll soon find
him"; and in a minute he had looked up the chimney and behind the
dresser and under the wooden bedstead. Then he turned to the corner
cupboard.

"You're daft yourself," said the bishop, "to look in that little place
for a strong man like Robin." And all the time the spinner at the wheel
sat grumbling and mumbling. It was a queer thread that was wound on the
spool, but no one thought of that. It was Robin that they wanted, and
they cared little what kind of thread an old woman in a cottage was