a-spinning.

"He's here, your Reverence," called a man who had opened the lower door
of the corner cupboard.

"Bring him out and set him on the horse," ordered the bishop, "and see
to it that you treat him like a wax candle in the church. The king's
bidden that the thief and outlaw be brought to him, and I well know
he'll hang the rogue on a gallows so high that it will show over the
whole kingdom; but he has given orders that no one shall have the reward
if the rascal has but a bruise on his finger, save that it came in a
fair fight."

So the merry little old woman in Robin's tunic and Robin's green cloak
was set gently on a milk-white steed. The bishop himself mounted a
dapple-gray, and down the road they went.

It was the cheeriest party that one can imagine. The bishop went
laughing all the way for pure delight that he had caught Robin Hood. He
told more stories than one could make up in an age of leap-years, and
they were all about where he went and what he did in the days before he
became bishop. The men were so happy at the thought of having the great
reward the king had offered that they laughed at the bishop's stories
louder than any one had ever laughed at them before. And as for the
merry little old woman, she had the gayest time of all, though she had
to keep her face muffled in her hood, and couldn't laugh aloud the least
bit, and couldn't jump down from the great white horse and dance the gay
little jig that her feet were fairly aching to try.

While the merry little old woman was riding off with the bishop and his
men, Robin sat at the flax-wheel and spun and spun till he could no
longer hear the beat of the horses' hoofs on the hard ground. No time
had he to take off the kirtle and the jacket and the kerchief of red and
blue, for no one knew when the proud bishop might find out that he had
the wrong prisoner, and would come galloping back to the cottage on the
border of the forest.

"If I can only get to my good men and true!" thought Robin; and he
sprang up from the little flax-wheel with the distaff in his hand, and
ran out of the open door.

All the long day had Robin been away from his bowmen, and as the
twilight time drew near, they were more and more fearful of what might
have befallen him. They went to the edge of the forest, and there they
sat with troubled faces.

"I've heard that the sheriff was seen but two days ago on the eastern
side of the wood," said Much the miller's son.

"A