His armour was fantastic in form and well wrought;but by this time I was quite used to the strangeness of him,and merely muttered to myself,"He is coming to summon the squire to the leet;"so I turned toward the village in good earnest.Nor,again,was I surprised at my own garments,although I might well have been from their unwontedness.I was dressed in a black cloth gown reaching to my ankles,neatly embroidered about the collar and cuffs,with wide sleeves gathered in at the wrists;a hood with a sort of bag hanging down from it was on my head,a broad red leather girdle round my waist,on one side of which hung a pouch embroidered very prettily and a case made of hard leather chased with a hunting scene,which I knew to be a pen and ink case;on the other side a small sheath-knife,only an arm in case of dire necessity.
Well,I came into the village,where I did not see (nor by this time expected to see)a single modern building,although many of them were nearly new,notably the church,which was large,and quite ravished my heart with its extreme beauty,elegance,and fitness.The chancel of this was so new that the dust of the stone still lay white on the midsummer grass beneath the carvings of the windows.The houses were almost all built of oak frame-work filled with cob or plaster well whitewashed;though some had their lower stories of rubble-stone,with their windows and doors of well-moulded freestone.There was much curious and inventive carving about most of them;and though some were old and much worn,there was the same look of deftness and trimness,and even beauty,about every detail in them which I noticed before in the field-work.They were all roofed with oak shingles,mostly grown as grey as stone;but one was so newly built that its roof was yet pale and yellow.This was a corner house,and the corner post of it had a carved niche wherein stood a gaily painted figure holding an anchor--St.Clement to wit,as the dweller in the house was a blacksmith.Half a stone's throw from the east end of the churchyard wall was a tall cross of stone,new like the church,the head beautifully carved with a crucifix amidst leafage.It stood on a set of wide stone steps,octagonal in shape,where three roads from other villages met and formed a wide open space on which a thousand people or more could stand together with no great crowding.
All this I saw,and also that there was a goodish many people about,women and children,and a few old men at the doors,many of them somewhat gaily clad,and that men were coming into the village street by the other end to that by which I had entered,by twos and threes,most of them carrying what I could see were bows in cases of linen yellow with wax or oil;they had quivers at their backs,and most of them a short sword by their left side,and a pouch and knife on the right;they were mostly dressed in red or brightish green or blue cloth jerkins,with a hood on the head generally of another colour.As they came nearer I saw that the cloth of their garments was somewhat coarse,but stout and serviceable.I knew,somehow,that they had been shooting at the butts,and,indeed,I could still hear a noise of men thereabout,and even now and again when the wind set from that quarter the twang of the bowstring and the plump of the shaft in the target.
I leaned against the churchyard wall and watched these men,some of whom went straight into their houses and some loitered about still;they were rough-looking fellows,tall and stout,very black some of them,and some red-haired,but most had hair burnt by the sun into the colour of tow;and,indeed,they were all burned and tanned and freckled variously.Their arms and buckles and belts and the finishings and hems of their garments were all what we should now call beautiful,rough as the men were;nor in their speech was any of that drawling snarl or thick vulgarity which one is used to hear from labourers in civilisation;not that they talked like gentlemen either,but full and round and bold,and they were merry and good-tempered enough;I could see that,though I felt shy and timid amongst them.
One of them strode up to me across the road,a man some six feet high,with a short black beard and black eyes and berry-brown skin,with a huge bow in his hand bare of the case,a knife,a pouch,and a short hatchet,all clattering together at his girdle.
"Well,friend,"said he,"thou lookest partly mazed;what tongue hast thou in thine head?""A tongue that can tell rhymes,"said I.
"So I thought,"said he."Thirstest thou any?""Yea,and hunger,"said I.
And therewith my hand went into my purse,and came out again with but a few small and thin silver coins with a cross stamped on each,and three pellets in each corner of the cross.The man grinned.
"Aha!"said he,"is it so?Never heed it,mate.It shall be a song for a supper this fair Sunday evening.But first,whose man art thou?""No one's man,"said I,reddening angrily;"I am my own master."He grinned again.
"Nay,that's not the custom of England,as one time belike it will be.Methinks thou comest from heaven down,and hast had a high place there too."He seemed to hesitate a moment,and then leant forward and whispered in my ear:"John the Miller,that ground small,small,small,"and stopped and winked at me,and from between my lips without my mind forming any meaning came the words,"The king's son of heaven shall pay for all."He let his bow fall on to his shoulder,caught my right hand in his and gave it a great grip,while his left hand fell among the gear at his belt,and I could see that he half drew his knife.
"Well,brother,"said he,"stand not here hungry in the highway when there is flesh and bread in the Rose yonder.Come on."And with that he drew me along toward what was clearly a tavern door,outside which men were sitting on a couple of benches and drinking meditatively from curiously shaped earthen pots glazed green and yellow,some with quaint devices on them.
