trying to catch and kill it. Now
there was great confusion, the eyes of all being fixed upon the hawk and
the dog, in the midst of which the lady Blanche very quietly turned her
head, and lifting her hand as though to see how the hawk had fallen from
it, with a swift movement laid her fingers against her lips and threw a
kiss to me.

As swiftly I bowed back and went on my way with a beating heart. For a
few moments I was filled with joy, since I could not mistake the meaning
of this signalled kiss. Then came sorrow like an April cloud, since my
wound which was in the way of healing was all re-opened. I had begun to
forget the lady Blanche, or rather by an effort of the will, to thrust
her from my thought, as my confessor had bidden me. But now on the wings
of that blown kiss thither she had flown back again, not to be frighted
out for many a day.

That night I slept at an inn at Tonbridge, a comfortable place where the
host stared at the gold piece from the bag which I tendered in payment,
and at first would not take what was due to him out of it, because it
bore the head of some ancient king. However, in the end a merchant of
Tonbridge who came in for his morning ale showed him that it was good,
so that trouble passed.

About two in the afternoon I came to Southwark, a town that to me seemed
as big as Hastings before it was burned, where was a fine inn called the
Tabard at which I stopped to bait my horses and to take a bite and drink
of ale. Then I rode on over the great Thames where floated a multitude
of ships and boats, crossing it by London Bridge, a work so wonderful
that I marvelled that it could be made by the hand of man, and so broad
that it had shops on either side of the roadway, in which were sold all
sorts of merchandise. Thence I inquired my way to Cheapside, and came
there at last thrusting a path through a roaring multitude of people,
or so it seemed to me who never before had seen so many men and women
gathered together, all going on their way and, it would appear, ignorant
of each other.

Here I found a long and crowded thoroughfare with gabled houses on
either side in which all kinds of trades were carried on. Down this I
wandered, being cursed at more than once because my pack mare, growing
frightened, dragged away from me and crossed the path of carts which had
to stop till I could pull her free. After the third of these tangles I
halted by the side of the footway behind a wain with barrels o