ill 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.

CHAPTER II

THE MAN FROM ESSEX

I entered the door and started at first with my old astonishment, with
which I had woke up, so strange and beautiful did this interior seem to
me, though it was but a pothouse parlour. A quaintly-carved side board
held an array of bright pewter pots and dishes and wooden and earthen
bowls; a stout oak table went up and down the room, and a carved oak
chair stood by the chimney-corner, now filled by a very old man
dim-eyed and white-bearded. That, except the rough stools and benches
on which the company sat, was all the furniture. The walls were
panelled roughly enough with oak boards to about six feet from the
floor, and about three feet of plaster above that was wrought in a
pattern of a rose stem running all round the room, freely and roughly
done, but with (as it seemed to my unused eyes) wonderful skill and
spirit. On the hood of the great chimney a huge rose was wrought in
the plaster and brightly painted in its proper colours. There were a
dozen or more of the men I had seen coming along the street sitting
there, some eating and all drinking; their cased bows leaned against
the wall, their quivers hung on pegs in the panelling, and in a corner
of the room I saw half-a-dozen bill-hooks that looked made more for war
than for hedge-shearing, with ashen handles some seven foot long.
Three or four children were running about among the legs of the men,
heeding them mighty little in their bold play, and the men seemed
little troubled by it, although