no bread,
She weeps, poor thing, that an impartial heaven
Bestows on her so small a crumb of bliss
As me! You'd scarce believe, now, half the nostrums,
Possets and strangely nasty herbal juices
That girl has made me gulp, in the vain hope
That I, the frog, should swell to an ox like thee.
I tell her it's all in vain, and she still cheats
Her fancy and swears I've grown well nigh three feet
Already. O Lord, she's desperate. She'll advance
Right inward to the sources of creation,
She'll take the reins of the world in hand. She'll stop
The sun like Joshua, turn the moon to blood,
And if I have to swallow half the herbs
In Sherwood, I shall stalk a giant yet,
Shoulder to shoulder with thee, Little John,
And crack thy head at quarter-staff. But don't,
Don't joke about it. 'Tis a serious matter.

LITTLE JOHN

Into the cave, then, with thy feather-bed.
Old Much, thy father, waits thee there to make
A table of green turfs for Robin Hood.
We shall have guests anon, O merry times,
Baron and Knight and abbot, all that ride
Through Sherwood, all shall come and dine with him
When they have paid their toll! Old Much is there
Growling at thy delay.

MUCH

[_Going towards the cave._]

O, my poor father.
Now, there's a sad thing, too. He is so ashamed
Of his descendants. Why for some nine years
He shut his eyes whenever he looked at me;
And I have seen him on the village green
Pretend to a stranger, once, who badgered him
With curious questions, that I was the son
Of poor old Gaffer Bramble, the lame sexton.
That self-same afternoon, up comes old Bramble
White hair a-blaze and big red waggling nose
All shaking with the palsy; bangs our door
Clean off its hinges with his crab-tree crutch,
And stands there--framed--against the sunset sky!
He stretches out one quivering fore-finger
At father, like the great Destroying Angel
In the stained window: straight, the milk boiled over,
The cat ran, baby squalled and mother screeched.
Old Bramble asks my father--what--what--what
He meant--he meant--he meant! You should have seen
My father's hopeless face! Lord, how he blushed,
Red as a beet-root! Lord, Lord, how he blushed!
'Tis a hard business when a parent looks
Askance upon his offspring.

[_Exit in