"And 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 with his head on the wet moss."
"Everybody knows there are witches," said Will Scarlet, "and folks say that wherever they may be through the day, they run to the forest when the sun begins to sink, and while they're running they can't say any magic words to hurt a man if he shoots them."
"What's that?" whispered Much the miller's son softly, and he fitted an arrow to the string.
"Wait; make a cross on it first," said Little John.