"Here she was wont to go! and here! and here! Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow, The world may find the spring by following her, For other print her airy steps ne'er left. Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk! But like the soft west wind she shot along, And where she went the flowers took thickest root-- As she had sowed them with her odorous foot." Robin Hood has left Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John, and all his merry men to hunt the deer and make ready the feast. And Tuck says: "And I, the chaplain, here am left to be Steward to-day, and charge you all in fee, To don your liveries, see the bower dressed, And fit the fine devices for the feast." So some make ready the bower, the tables and the seats, while Maid Marian, Little John and others set out to hunt. Presently they return successful, having killed a fine stag. Robin, too, comes home, and after loving greetings, listens to the tale of the hunt. Then Marian tells how, when the huntsmen cut up the stag, they threw the bone called the raven's bone to one that sat and croaked for it. "Now o'er head sat a raven, On a sere bough, a grown great bird, and hoarse! Who, all the while the deer was breaking up So croaked and cried for it, as all the huntsmen, Especially old Scathlock, thought it ominous; Swore it was Mother Maudlin, whom he met At the day-dawn, just as he roused the deer Out of his lair." Mother Maudlin was a retched old witch, and Scathlock says he is yet more sure that the raven was she, because in her own form he has just seen her broiling the raven's bone by the fire, sitting "In the chimley-nuik within." While the talk went on Maid Marian had gone away. Now she returns and begins to quarrel with Robin Hood. Venison is much too good for such folk as he and his men, she says; "A starved mutton carcase would better fit their palates," and she orders Scathlock to take the venison to Mother Maudlin. Those around can scarce believe their ears, for "Robin and his Marian are the sum and talk Of all that breathe here in the green-wood walk." Such is their love for each other. They are "The turtles of the wood," "The billing pair." No one is more astonished than Robin Hood, as he cries: "I dare not trust the faith of mine own senses, I fear mine eyes and ears: this is not Marian! Nor am I Robin Hood! I pray you ask her, Ask her, good shepherds, ask her all for me: Or rather ask yourselves, if she be she, Or I be I." But Maid Marian only scolds the more, and at last goes away leaving the others in sad bewilderment. Of course this was not Maid Marian at all, but Mother Maudlin, the old witch, who had taken her form in order to make mischief.