The Heart

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!