ng
such a wicked outlaw. "You've stolen gold from the knights," said he,
"you've stolen from the sheriff of Nottingham, and you've even stolen
from me. Glad am I to see Robin Hood--but what's that?" the bishop
cried. "Who are those men, and who is their leader? And who are you?" he
demanded of the merry little old woman.

Now the little woman had been taught to order herself lowly and
reverently to all her betters, so before she answered the bishop she
slipped down from the tall white horse and made a deep curtsey to the
great man.

"If you please, sir," said she, "I think it's Robin Hood and his men."

"And who are you?" he demanded again.

"Oh, I'm nobody but a little old woman that lives in a cottage alone and
spins," and then she sang in a lightsome little chirrup of a voice:--

"Monday I wash and Tuesday I iron,
Wednesday I cook and I mend;
Thursday I brew and Friday I sweep,
And baking day brings the end."

I fear that the bishop did not hear the little song, for the arrows were
flying thick and fast. The little old woman slipped behind a big tree,
and there she danced her

"Hey down, down, an a down!"

to her heart's content, while the fighting went on.

It was not long before the great bishop was Robin's prisoner, and ere he
could go free, he had to open his strong leather wallet and count out
more gold than the moon had shone on in the forest for many and many a
night. He laid down the goldpieces one by one, and at every piece he
gave a groan that seemed to come from the very bottom of his boots.

"That's for all the world like the cry I heard from the little black
pond to the westward," said Little John. "It wasn't like bird and it
wasn't like beast, and now I know what it was; it was the soul of a
stingy man, and he had to count over and over the money that he ought to
have given away when he was alive."

As for the merry little old woman, she was a prisoner too, and such a
time as she had! First there was a bigger feast than she had ever
dreamed of before, and every man of Robin's followers was bound that she
should eat the bit that he thought was nicest. They made her a little
throne of soft green moss, and on it they laid their hunting cloaks.
They built a shelter of fresh boughs over her head, and then they sang
songs to her. They set up great torches all round about the glade. They
wrestled and they vaulted and they climbed. They played every game