will be kind to thee, for I will feast straightway upon the good things thou hast with thee, and thou shalt be bidden to the eating.” At these words he began slipping off his doublet, and the Cobbler, seeing him so in earnest, began peeling off his clothes also, for Robin Hood’s garb tickled his eye. So each put on the other fellow’s clothes, and Robin gave the honest Cobbler ten bright new shillings. Quoth merry Robin, ”I ha’ been a many things in my life before, but never have I been an honest cobbler. Come, friend, let us fall to and eat, for something within me cackles aloud for that good fat capon.” So both sat down and began to feast right lustily, so that when they were done the bones of the capon were picked as bare as charity.

Robin Hood and Quince feast together.

Then Robin stretched his legs out with a sweet feel- ing of comfort within him. Quoth he, “By the turn of thy voice, good Quince, I know that thou hast a fair song or two running loose in thy head like colts in a meadow. I prythee, turn one of them out for me.”

Quince singeth a merry song.

“A song or two I ha’,” quoth the Cobbler; “poor things; poor things; but such as they are thou art welcome to one of them.” So, moistening his throat with a swallow of beer, he began to sing thus:—“Of all the joys, the best I love, Sing hey my frisking Nan, O, And that which most my soul doth move, It is the clinking can, O.

“All other bliss I’d throw away, Sing hey my frisking Nan, O, But this—”

The King’s men seize upon Quince the Cobbler.

The stout Cobbler got no further in his song, for of a sudden six horsemen burst upon them where they sat, and seized roughly upon the honest craftsman, hauling him to his feet, and nearly plucking the clothes from him as they did so. “Ha!” roared the leader of the band in a great big voice of joy, “have we then caught thee at last, thou blue-clad knave? Now, blessed be the name of Saint Hubert, for the good Bishop of Hereford hath promised that much to the band that shall bring thee to him. Oho! thou cunning rascal! thou wouldst look so innocent, forsooth! We know thee, thou old fox. But off thou goest with us to have thy brush clipped forthwith.” At these words the poor Cobbler gazed all around him with his great blue eyes as round as those of a dead fish, while his mouth gaped as though he had swallowed all his words and so lost his speech.

Robin also gaped and stared in a wondering way, just as the Cobbler would have done in his place. “Alack-a-daisy, me,” quoth he. “I know not whether I be sitting here or in no-man’s land! What meaneth all this stir i’ th’ pot, dear good gentlemen? Surely this is a sweet, honest fellow.”

“ ‘Honest fellow,’ sayst thou, clown?” quoth one of the men. “Why, I tell thee that this is that same rogue that men call Robin Hood.”

At this speech the Cobbler stared and gaped more than ever, for there was such a threshing of thoughts going on within his poor head that his wits were all befogged with the dust and chaff thereof. Moreover, as he looked at Robin Hood, and saw the yeoman look so like what he knew himself to be, he began to doubt and to think that mayhap he was the great outlaw in real sooth. Said he in a slow, wondering voice, “Am I in very truth that fellow?—Now I had thought—but nay, Quince, thou art mistook—yet—am I?—Nay, I must indeed be Robin Hood! Yet, truly, I had never thought to pass from an honest craftsman to such a great yeoman.”

“Alas!” quoth Robin Hood, “look ye there, now! See how your ill-treatment hath curdled the wits of this poor lad and turned them all sour! I, myself, am Quince, the Cobbler of Derby Town.”

“Is it so?” said Quince. “Then, indeed, I am somebody else, and can be none other than Robin Hood. Take me, fellows; but let me tell you that ye ha’ laid hand upon the stoutest yeoman that ever trod the woodlands.”

The King’s men take Quince away with them to the Bishop of Hereford at Tutbury Town.

“Thou wilt play madman, wilt thou?” said the leader of the band. “Here, Giles, fetch a cord