hood

"Not that, I think," said Dr Hood; "the eyes have certainly a singular expression.

"Now you know about what?" asked Hood, in some exasperation.

"Dr Hood," he cried enthusiastically, "you are a great poet!

"I have no notion what you are talking about," said Dr Hood rather haughtily; "my facts are all inevitable, though necessarily incomplete.

"But a hatter," protested Hood, "can get money out of his stock of new hats.

There was a long silence, and Dr Hood regarded the little man who had spoken with a dark and attentive smile.

Then Robin Hood stepped quickly to the coverside and cut a good staff of ground oak, straight, without new, and six feet in length, and came back trimming away the tender stems from it, while the stranger waited for him, leaning upon his staff, and whistling as he gazed round about.

Then Robin Hood and all his band laughed aloud until the stranger began to grow angry.

"Nay, good friend," said Robin Hood, "bottle thine anger, for the name fitteth thee well.

Here stood a great oak tree with branches spreading broadly around, beneath which was a seat of green moss where Robin Hood was wont to sit at feast and at merrymaking with his stout men about him.

And thus it was that Robin Hood became outlawed; thus a band of merry companions gathered about him, and thus he gained his right-hand man, Little John; and so the prologue ends.