"Body o' me,—what I drunk! Not a whit. I had had just enough to make me all right. I'd a drunk about as much that night as I have to-night, or perhaps a quart more."
"And who do you then suppose the buyer was?" inquired Shakespeare.
"Who?" said the old host, "why, who but Robin Goodfellow, his own self! Who else should it be?"
"True," said Shakespeare, laughing; "there's no question on't."
"A song, a song," said Dick, the shepherd. "Let fair Mistress Anne sing the song about Robin."
Anne Hathaway accordingly, in a marvellously sweet voice, and to the old tune of Dulcina, sang some verses, which, although not word for word the same, in some sort were like the following stanzas:—
I.
From Oberon, in fairy land,
The king of ghosts and shadows there,
Mad Robin I, at his command,
Am sent to view the night sports here.
What revel rout
It kept about
I will o'ersee
And merry be
In every corner where I go,
And make good sport with ho, ho, ho!
II.