Robin, one that, in such an onfall, would go far, as beseemed his blood.
But as touching his fortunes, Thomas Scott could tell me neither good nor
bad, though he knew Robin, and gave him a good name for a stout man-at-
arms. It was of some comfort to me to hear a Scots tongue; but, for the
rest, I travelled on with a heavier heart, deeming that Orleans must
indeed fall ere I could seek my brother in that town.




CHAPTER III--WHAT BEFELL OUTSIDE OF CHINON TOWN


My old nurse, when I was a child, used to tell me a long story of a
prince who, wandering through the world, made friends with many strange
companions. One she called Lynx-eye, that could see through a mountain;
one was Swift-foot, that could outrun the wind; one was Fine-ear, that
could hear the grass growing; and there was Greedy-gut, that could
swallow a river. All these were very serviceable to this gracious
prince, of I know not what country, in his adventures; and they were
often brought into my mind by the companions whom we picked up on the
grass-grown roads.

These wanderers were as strange as the friends of the prince, and were as
variously, but scarce as honourably, gifted. There was the one-armed
soldier, who showed his stump very piteously when it was a question of
begging from a burgess, but was as well furnished with limbs as other men
when no burgess was in sight. There was a wretched woman violer, with
her jackanapes, and with her husband, a hang-dog ruffian, she bearing the
mark of his fist on her eye, and commonly trailing far behind him with