in Natures lap,
    Leap’d out, and made their solemne Conjuration,
    To last, but while shee liv’d.  Doe not I know,
    How the Vale wither’d the same Day?... that since,
    No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre
    Look’d out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke,
    As it were hung so for her Exequies! 
    And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell,
    But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle,
    And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule
    Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings! 
    Peace, you shall heare her scritch. (ib.)

To distract him Karoline sings a song.  But after all he is but mad north-north-west, and though he would study the singer’s conceits ’as a new philosophy,’ he also thinks to pay the singer.

    Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this,
    This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse;
                [Forces Amie to kiss Karolin.
    Liv’d my Earine, you should have twenty,
    For every line here, one; I would allow ’hem
    From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her: 
    Now I am poore as you. (ib.)

There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin’s interruptions, to tell how ‘at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.’

Robin. I! what was that, sweet Marian? [Kisses her.

Marian. You’ll not heare?

Rob. I love these interruptions in a Story; [Kisses her
again.
They make it sweeter.

Mar.        You doe know, as soone
As the Assay is taken—­                     [Kisses her again.

Rob. On, my Marian. 
I did but take the Assay. (I. vi.)

To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there

              sate a Raven
    On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse!

crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by Scathlock’s having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven.  Marian now proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie complains that she is not well, ‘sick,’ as her brother Lionel jestingly explains, ‘of the young shepherd that bekiss’d her.’  They go off the stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement.  In the next act Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought discord into their feast.  Douce is clad in the