little clouds of dust at each footstep; for it was noontide, the most peaceful time of all the day, next to twilight.  All the earth was silent in the restfulness of eating time; the plowhorses stood in the furrow munching, with great bags over their noses holding sweet food, the plowman sat under the hedge and the plowboy also, and they, too, were munching, each one holding a great piece of bread in one fist and a great piece of cheese in the other.

So Robin, with all the empty road to himself, strode along whistling merrily, his bags and pouches bobbing and dangling at his thighs.  At last he came to where a little grass-grown path left the road and, passing through a stile and down a hill, led into a little dell and on across a rill in the valley and up the hill on the other side, till it reached a windmill that stood on the cap of the rise where the wind bent the trees in swaying motion.  Robin looked at the spot and liked it, and, for no reason but that his fancy led him, he took the little path and walked down the grassy sunny slope of the open meadow, and so came to the little dingle and, ere he knew it, upon four lusty fellows that sat with legs outstretched around a goodly feast spread upon the ground.

Four merry beggars were they, and each had slung about his neck a little board that rested upon his breast.  One board had written upon it, “I am blind,” another, “I am deaf,” another, “I am dumb,” and the fourth, “Pity the lame one.”  But although all these troubles written upon the boards seemed so grievous, the four stout fellows sat around feasting as merrily as though Cain’s wife had never opened the pottle that held misfortunes and let them forth like a cloud of flies to pester us.

The deaf man was the first to hear Robin, for he said, “Hark, brothers, I hear someone coming.”  And the blind man was the first to see him, for he said, “He is an honest man, brothers, and one of like craft to ourselves.”  Then the dumb man called to him in a great voice and said, “Welcome, brother; come and sit while there is still some of the feast left and a little Malmsey in the pottle.”  At this, the lame man, who had taken off his wooden leg and unstrapped his own leg, and was sitting with it stretched out upon the grass so as to rest it, made room for Robin among them.  “We are glad to see thee, brother,” said he, holding out the flask of Malmsey.

“Marry,” quoth Robin, laughing, and weighing the flask in his hands ere he drank, “methinks it is no more than seemly of you all to be glad to see me, seeing that I bring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, and such a lusty leg to a lame man.  I drink to your happiness, brothers, as I may not drink to your health, seeing ye are already hale, wind and limb.”

At this all grinned, and the Blind beggar, who was the chief man among them, and was the broadest shouldered and most lusty rascal of all, smote Robin upon the shoulder, swearing he was a right merry wag.