to meet one of
the lords of Upmeads going armed about his errands, their own errands
were close at home, and it was little likely that they should go that
day so far as to Upmeads Water, seeing that it ran through the meadows
a half-score miles to the north-ward.

So Ralph rode on, and came into the high road, that led one way back
again into Upmeads, and crossed the Water by a fair bridge late builded
between King Peter and a house of Canons on the north side, and the
other way into a good cheaping-town hight Wulstead, beyond which Ralph
knew little of the world which lay to the south, and seemed to him a
wondrous place, full of fair things and marvellous adventures.

So he rode till he came into the town when the fair morning was still
young, the first mass over, and maids gathered about the fountain
amidst the market-place, and two or three dames sitting under the
buttercross. Ralph rode straight up to the house of a man whom he
knew, and had often given him guesting there, and he himself was not
seldom seen in the High House of Upmeads. This man was a merchant, who
went and came betwixt men's houses, and bought and sold many things
needful and pleasant to folk, and King Peter dealt with him much and
often. Now he stood in the door of his house, which was new and
goodly, sniffing the sweet scents which the morning wind bore into the
town; he was clad in a goodly long gown of grey welted with silver, of
thin cloth meet for the summer-tide: for little he wrought with his
hands, but much with his tongue; he was a man of forty summers,
ruddy-faced and black-bearded, and he was called Clement Chapman.

When he saw Ralph he smiled kindly on him, and came and held his
stirrup as he lighted down, and said: "Welcome, lord! Art thou come
to give me a message, and eat and drink in a poor huckster's house, and
thou armed so gallantly?"

Ralph laughed merrily, for he was hungry, and he said: "Yea, I will eat
and drink with thee and kiss my gossip, and go my ways."

Therewith the carle led him into the house; and if it were goodly
without, within it was better. For there was a fair chamber panelled
with wainscot well carven, and a cupboard of no sorry vessels of silver
and latten: the chairs and stools as fair as might be; no king's might
be better: the windows were glazed, and there were flowers and knots
and posies in them; and the bed was hung with goodly web from over sea
such as the soldan useth. Also, whereas the