rd by your
side."

"Yet it is not my trade," answered the merchant. "I doubt not that if
I set you down in my shop at Norwich you might scarce tell fustian from
falding, and know little difference between the velvet of Genoa and the
three-piled cloth of Bruges. There you might well turn to me for help.
But here on a lone roadside, with thick woods and robber-knights, I turn
to you, for it is the business to which you have been reared."

"There is sooth in what you say, Master Micheldene," said Sir Nigel,
"and I trust that we may come upon this Roger Clubfoot, for I have heard
that he is a very stout and skilful soldier, and a man from whom much
honor is to be gained."

"He is a bloody robber," said the trader, curtly, "and I wish I saw him
kicking at the end of a halter."

"It is such men as he," Sir Nigel remarked, "who give the true knight
honorable deeds to do, whereby he may advance himself."

"It is such men as he," retorted Micheldene, "who are like rats in
a wheat-rick or moths in a woolfels, a harm and a hindrance to all
peaceful and honest men."

"Yet, if the dangers of the road weigh so heavily upon you, master
alderman, it is a great marvel to me that you should venture so far from
home."

"And sometimes, sir knight, it is a marvel to myself. But I am a man who
may grutch and grumble, but when I have set my face to do a thing I
will not turn my back upon it until it be done. There is one, Francois
Villet, at Cahors, who will send me wine-casks for my cloth-bales, so to
Cahors I will go, though all the robber-knights of Christendom were to
line the roads like yonder poplars."

"Stoutly spoken, master alderman! But how have you fared hitherto?"

"As a lamb fares in a land of wolves. Five times we have had to beg and
pray ere we could pass. Twice I have paid toll to the wardens of the
road. Three times we have had to draw, and once at La Reolle we stood
seer our wool-bales, Watkin and I, and we laid about us for as long as a
man might chant a litany, slaying one rogue and wounding two others. By
God's coif! we are men of peace, but we are free English burghers, not
to be mishandled either in our country or abroad. Neither lord, baron,
knight, or commoner shall have as much as a strike of flax of mine
whilst I have strength to wag this sword."

"And a passing strange sword it is," quoth Sir Nigel. "What make you,
Alleyne, of these black lines which are drawn across the sheath?"

"I cannot tell what