ly promise in the firelight that gleamed upon
the rafters. A woman, who seemed just old enough to be the boy's mother,
had thrown down her spinning wheel in her joy at the sound of Robin's
horn, and was bustling with singular alacrity to set forth her festal
ware and prepare an abundant supper. Her features, though not beautiful,
were agreeable and expressive, and were now lighted up with such
manifest joy at the sight of Robin, that Marian could not help feeling a
momentary touch of jealousy, and a half-formed suspicion that Robin had
broken his forest law, and had occasionally gone out of bounds, as other
great men have done upon occasion, in order to reconcile the breach
of the spirit, with the preservation of the letter, of their own
legislation. However, this suspicion, if it could be said to exist in a
mind so generous as Marian's, was very soon dissipated by the entrance
of the woman's husband, who testified as much joy as his wife had done
at the sight of Robin; and in a short time the whole of the party were
amicably seated round a smoking supper of river-fish and wild wood fowl,
on which the baron fell with as much alacrity as if he had been a true
pilgrim from Palestine.

The husband produced some recondite flasks of wine, which were laid by
in a binn consecrated to Robin, whose occasional visits to them in his
wanderings were the festal days of these warm-hearted cottagers, whose
manners showed that they had not been born to this low estate. Their
story had no mystery, and Marian easily collected it from the tenour of
their conversation. The young man had been, like Robin, the victim of an
usurious abbot, and had been outlawed for debt, and his nut-brown maid
had accompanied him to the depths of Sherwood, where they lived an
unholy and illegitimate life, killing the king's deer, and never hearing
mass. In this state, Robin, then earl of Huntingdon, discovered them
in one of his huntings, and gave them aid and protection. When Robin
himself became an outlaw, the necessary qualification or gift of
continency was too hard a law for our lovers to subscribe to; and
as they were thus disqualified for foresters, Robin had found them a
retreat in this romantic and secluded spot. He had done similar service
to other lovers similarly circumstanced, and had disposed them in
various wild scenes which he and his men had discovered in their
flittings from place to place, supplying them with all necessaries and
comforts fr