ly Flemings haggle at thy price
for thy Southdown fleeces. Weight of dirt forsooth! Do not we wash the
sheep in the Poolhole stream, the purest water in the shire?"

Manners withheld Ambrose from responding to Stephen's hot impatience,
while the merchant in the sleek puce-coloured coat discussed the Flemish
wool market with the monk for a good half-hour longer.

By this time the knight's horses were brought into the yard, and the
merchant's men had made ready his palfrey, his pack-horse being already
on the way; the host's son came round with the reckoning, and there was
a general move. Stephen expected to escape, and hardly could brook the
good-natured authority with which Father Shoveller put Ambrose aside,
when he would have discharged their share of the reckoning, and took it
upon himself. "Said I not ye were my guests?" quoth he. "We missed our
morning mass, it will do us no harm to hear Nones in the Minster."

"Sir, we thank you, but we should be on our way," said Ambrose, incited
by Stephen's impatient gestures.

"Tut, tut. Fair and softly, my son, or more haste may be worse speed.
Methought ye had somewhat to show me."

Stephen's youthful independence might chafe, but the habit of submission
to authorities made him obediently follow the monk out at the back
entrance of the inn, behind which lay the Minster yard, the grand
western front rising in front of them, and the buildings of Saint
Swithun's Abbey extending far to their right. The hour was nearly noon,
and the space was deserted, except for an old woman sitting at the great
western doorway with a basket of rosaries made of nuts and of snail
shells, and a workman or two employed on the bishop's new reredos.

"Now for thy tokens," said Father Shoveller. "See my young foresters,
ye be new to the world. Take an old man's counsel, and never show, nor
speak of such gear in an hostel. Mine host of the White Hart is an old
gossip of mine, and indifferent honest, but who shall say who might be
within earshot?"

Stephen had a mind to say that he did not see why the meddling monk
should wish to see them at all, and Ambrose looked a little reluctant,
but Father Shoveller said in his good-humoured way, "As you please,
young sirs. 'Tis but an old man's wish to see whether he can do aught
to help you, that you be not as lambs among wolves. Mayhap ye deem ye
can walk into London town, and that the first man you meet can point you
to your uncle--Randall c