MacCulloch's account opens with a short essay on envy. The poor hated Robin because he had come from nothing, and the rich looked down on him for the same reason. Everyone put his success down to luck or dishonesty. It was also said that he found treasure in one of his fields, and there was a well on his land that sometimes overflowed and sometimes held barely an inch of water. A man sent down to bail it out had to be pulled up quickly when the water came rushing back.
When he grew old and took to his bed, his attendants were bothered by the constant creaking of an old oak press in the corner, which he would not let anyone open. They assumed it held his money. His son begged him to leave something to the poor, and he answered "Je n'en counis pouïnt": he did not know any. At the end he had the press opened and told them to throw the books inside onto the fire. The books put the fire out. More faggots were piled on and lit, and at last the books, if not burned, disappeared. The press stopped creaking as soon as they were taken out of it. A storm was blowing when he died.
Then an unusually large crow came and settled on the roof. On the day of the funeral it flew down onto the coffin as it left the house. The bearers could not drive it off, and when the coffin was lowered into the grave it stayed where it was and let itself be buried under the sexton's earth. Carey added a note that in German Switzerland a crow on the roof of a house of the dead was taken as a sign that the dead man was damned.
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