"What ails this haste?" the beggar said,
"May ye not tarry still,
Until your money be received?
I'll pay you with good will.210
"The shaking of my pocks, I fear,
Hath blown into your eyne;
But I have a good pike-staff here
Can ripe them out full clean."
The young men answer'd never a word,215
They were dumb as a stane;
In the thick wood the beggar fled,
E'er they riped their eyne.
And syne the night became so late,
To seek him was in vain:220
But judge ye, if they lookèd blate,
When they came home again.
Good Robin spear'd how they had sped;
They answer'd him, "Full ill:"
"That cannot be," good Robin says,225
"Ye have been at the mill.
"The mill it is a meatrif place,
They may lick what they please;
Most like ye have been at that art,
Who would look to your cloaths."230
They hang'd their heads, they dropèd down,
A word they could not speak:
Robin said, "Because I fell a-swoon,
I think you'll do the like.
"Tell on the matter, less or more,235
And tell me [what] and how
Ye have done with the bold beggàr,
I sent you for right now."
And when they told him to an end,
As I have said before,240
How that the beggar did them blind,
What misters process more,
[And how he lin'd their shoulders broad]
[With his great trenchen tree,]
And how in the thick wood he fled,245
E'er they a stime could see,