nd the proud bishop's not in his palace," muttered Will Scarlet.
"Where he's gone I know not, but may the saints keep Master Robin from
meeting him. He hates us men of the greenwood worse than the sheriff
does, and he'd hang any one of us to the nearest oak."

"He'd not hang Master Robin," declared Much the miller's son, "for the
bishop likes good red gold, and the king's offered a great reward for
him alive and unhurt." The others laughed, but in a moment they were
grave again, and peered anxiously through the trees in one way and then
in another, while nearer came the twilight.

"There are folks who say the forest is haunted," said Little John. "I
never saw anything, but one night when I was close to the little black
pond that lies to the westward, I heard a cry that wasn't from bird or
beast; I know that."

"And didn't you see anything?" asked Much the miller's son.

"No," answered Little John, "but where there's a cry, there's something
to make the cry, and it wasn't bird or beast; I'm as sure of that as I
am that my name is Little John."

"But it isn't," declared Friar Tuck. "You were christened John Little."
No one smiled, for they were too much troubled about Robin.

"When I was a youngster," said William Scarlet, "I had an old nurse, and
she told me that a first cousin of hers knew a woman whose husband was
going through the forest by night, and he saw a witch carry a round
bundle under her arm. It was wrapped up in a brown kerchief; and while
he looked, the wind blew the kerchief away, and he saw that the round
bundle was a man's head. The mouth of it opened and called, 'Help!
help!' He shot an arrow through the old witch, and then he said to the
head, 'Where do you want to go? Whose head are you?' The head answered,
'I'm your head, and I want to go on your shoulders.' Then he put up his
hand, and, sure enough, his own head was gone, and there it lay on the
ground beside the dead witch with the arrow sticking through her. He
took up the head and set it on his shoulders. This was the story that he
told when he came back in the morning, but no one knew whether really to
believe it all or not. After that night he always carried his head a bit
on one side, and some said it was because he hadn't set it back quite
straight: but there are some folks that won't believe anything unless
they see it themselves, and they said he had had a drink or two more
than he should and that he took cold in his neck from sleeping