d the way through the side screen into the chancel aisle, and
there on the pavement lay the bodies of the foemen, their weapons taken
from them and they stripped of their armour, but not otherwise of their
clothes, and their faces mostly, but not all, covered. At the east end
of the aisle was another altar, covered with a rich cloth beautifully
figured, and on the wall over it was a deal of tabernacle work, in the
midmost niche of it an image painted and gilt of a gay knight on
horseback, cutting his own cloak in two with his sword to give a cantle
of it to a half-naked beggar. "Knowest thou any of these men?" said I.

He said, "Some I should know, could I see their faces; but let them be."

"Were they evil men?" said I.

"Yea," he said, "some two or three. But I will not tell thee of them;
let St. Martin, whose house this is, tell their story if he will. As
for the rest they were hapless fools, or else men who must earn their
bread somehow, and were driven to this bad way of earning it; God rest
their souls! I will be no tale-bearer, not even to God."

So we stood musing a little while, I gazing not on the dead men, but on
the strange pictures on the wall, which were richer and deeper coloured
than those in the nave; till at last John Ball turned to me and laid
his hand on my shoulder. I started and said, "Yea, brother; now must I
get me back to Will Green's house, as I promised to do so timely."

"Not yet, brother," said he; "I have still much to say to thee, and the
night is yet young. Go we and sit in the stalls of the vicars, and let
us ask and answer on matters concerning the fashion of this world of
menfolk, and of this land wherein we dwell; for once more I deem of
thee that thou hast seen things which I have not seen, and could not
have seen." With that word he led me back into the chancel, and we sat
down side by side in the stalls at the west end of it, facing the high
altar and the great east window. By this time the chancel was getting
dimmer as the moon wound round the heavens; but yet was there a
twilight of the moon, so that I could still see the things about me for
all the brightness of the window that faced us; and this moon twilight
would last, I knew, until the short summer night should wane, and the
twilight of the dawn begin to show us the colours of all things about
us.

So we sat, and I gathered my thoughts to hear what he would say, and I
myself was trying to think what I should ask