Mistress Catherine and I stood well to one side to let them pass by,
but when the morris dancers reached us, and caught sight of
Catherine in her green robes standing among the green bushes, above
which her fair face looked, half with dismay, half with a quick leap
of sympathy with the merriment, for there was in this girl a strange
spirit of misrule beneath all her quiet, and I verily believe that,
had she but let loose the leash in which she held herself, would
have joined those dancing and singing lasses and been outdone by
none, there was a sudden halt; then, before I knew what was to
happen, around her leapt a laughing score of them, shouting that
here was the true Maid Marion, and that old John Lubberkin could now
resign his post. Then off the hobby-horse they tumbled him, and the
lads and lasses gathering around her, and the graybeards standing
aloof with some chagrin, would, I believe, in spite of me, since
they outnumbered me vastly, have forced Catherine into that rude
pageant as Maid Marion. But while I was thrusting them aside,
holding myself before her as firmly as I might, there came a quick
clatter of hoofs, and Mistress Mary had dashed alongside on Merry
Roger. She scattered the merry revellers right and left, calling out
to her sister to go homeward with a laugh. "Fie on thee, Catherine!"
she cried out. "If thou art abroad on a May morning dressed like the
queen of it, what blame can there be to these good folk for giving
thee thy queendom?"
Catherine did not move to go when the people drew away from her, but
rather stood looking at them with that lurking fire in her eyes and
a flush on her fair cheeks. Mistress Mary sat on her horse, curbing
him with her little hand, and her golden curls floated around her
like a cloud, for she had ridden forth without her hood on hearing
the sound of the horns and bells, eager to see the show like any
child, and the merrymakers stared at her, grinning with uncouth
delight and never any resentment. There was that in Mary Cavendish's
look, when she chose to have it so, that could, I verily believe,
have swayed an army, so full of utter good-will and lovingkindness
it was, and, more than that, of such confidence in theirs in return
that it would have taken not only knaves, but knaves with no conceit
of themselves, to have forsworn her good opinion of them. Suddenly
there rose a great shout and such a volley of cheering and hallooing
as can come only from English throats. A tall lad cast a great
wreath over Mistress Mary's own head, and cried out with a shout
that here, here was Maid Marion. And scores of voices echoed his
with "Maid Marion, Marion!" And then, to my great astonishment and
dismay, for a man is with no enemy so much at a loss as with a
laughing one, since it wrongs his own bravery to meet smiles with
blows, they gave forth that I was Robin Hood; that the convict
tutor, Harry Wingfield, was Robin Hood!