"She's mayhap daft," said one of the bishop's men. "We'll soon find him"; and in a minute he had looked up the chimney and behind the dresser and under the wooden bedstead. Then he turned to the corner cupboard.
"You're daft yourself," said the bishop, "to look in that little place for a strong man like Robin." And all the time the spinner at the wheel sat grumbling and mumbling. It was a queer thread that was wound on the spool, but no one thought of that. It was Robin that they wanted, and they cared little what kind of thread an old woman in a cottage was 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.