better used for charity and the good of my merry band than in the enriching of such knaves as these.” So saying he rolled up the money in the sheepskin again, and putting it back in the purse, he thrust the pouch into his own bosom. Then taking up the flask of Malmsey he held it toward the two fellows lying on the grass, and quoth he, “Sweet friends, I drink your health and thank you dearly for what ye have so kindly given me this day, and so I wish you good den.” Then, taking up his staff, he left the spot and went merrily upon his way.

Robin Hood drinketh with them.

But when the two stout beggars that had been rapped upon the head roused themselves and sat up, and when the others had gotten over their fright and come back, they were as sad and woebegone as four frogs in dry weather, for two of them had cracked crowns, their Malmsey was all gone, and they had not so much as a farthing to cross their palms withal. As for the treasury of the Beggars’ Guild at the Inn of the Beggar’s Bush, near Lincoln Town, it was two hundred pounds poorer than it would have been had bold Robin not met the blind man, the deaf man, the dumb man, and the lame man nigh to the highroad that led to Blyth.

Robin Hood leaveth the beggars and goeth upon his way.

But after Robin left the little dell he strode along merrily, singing as he went; and so blithe was he and such a stout beggar, and, withal, so fresh and clean, that every merry lass he met had a sweet word for him and felt no fear, whilst the very dogs, that most times hate the sight of a beggar, snuffed at his legs in friendly wise and wagged their tails pleasantly; for dogs know an honest man by his smell, and an honest man Robin was—in his own way.

Thus he went along till at last he had come to the wayside cross nigh Ollerton, and, being somewhat tired, he sat him down to rest upon the grassy bank in front of it. “It groweth nigh time,” quoth he to himself, “that I were getting back again to Sherwood; yet it would please me well to have one more merry adventure ere I go back again to my jolly band.”

Robin Hood rests at the cross nigh Ollerton.

So he looked up the road and down the road to see who might come, until at last he saw some one drawing near, riding upon a horse. When the traveller came nigh enough for him to see him well, Robin laughed, for a strange enough figure he cut. He was a thin, weazened man, and, to look upon him, you could not tell whether he was thirty years old or sixty, so dried up was he even to skin and bone. As for the nag, it was as thin as the rider, and both looked as though they had been baked in Mother Huddle’s Oven, where folk are dried up so that they live forever. The poor nag’s neck bent down instead of up, as most horses’ do, and his mane was as ragged as though the mice had made nests in it; his backbone stood up sharp and jagged, like a new-turned furrow when the plough first passes, and his ribs showed beneath his skin like the hoops on a barrel of five-year-old ale. Thus the horse came hobbling along, and at every step the rider popped up and down in his saddle, so that his head bobbed and wagged upon his lean neck all in time to the motion of the nag. At this sight merry Robin laughed till the tears stood on his cheeks, for, as though to make the sight still more droll, the rider wore great clogs upon his feet instead of shoon, the soles whereof were made of wood half a palm’s breadth in thickness, and studded all over with great nails.

But although Robin laughed, he knew the wayfarer to be a certain rich corn engrosser of Worksop, who more than once had bought all the grain in the countryside and held it till it reached even famine prices, thus making much money from the needs of poor people, and for this he was hated far and near by every one that knew aught of him.

He seeth a strange man come a-riding.

Quoth Robin to