Poor Robin was born in Saffron-Walden, in the county of Essex, of honest, plain parents, who brought him up not as our nice dames do now-a-days, by directing him how much he should eat, but, as the fashion was then, full fed with gross meat, so that in a few years he grew a sturdy lad; and considering his growth and manners, a man might well say better fed than taught. His father being willing he should be able to live in the world another day, bound him an apprentice to a Saddler, one who fitted poor Robin's humour to a hair; for the master loving drink, he thought it should go hard if the man likewise did not also wet his lips with it. It fortuned one time his master had brewed a barrel of beer stronger than ordinary, to the drinking of which poor Robin one night invites five or six of his comrades, who, before the next morning, drank it all up. Poor Robin to excuse himself, draws the spiggot out, and throws a pailful of small beer and two or three pails full of water under the tap, and by a wile gets a great sow into the cellar; so the next morning when his master arose all was quiet, and the sow was blamed for what the boar pig had done.