bone, and was therefore of no great import. A kerchief dipped in
water and bound tightly round it eased the smart and stanched the blood.
Beyond this scratch I had no injuries, though from my own efforts I felt
as stiff and sore all over as though I had been well cudgelled, and the
slight wound got in Wells Cathedral had reopened and was bleeding. With
a little patience and cold water, however, I was able to dress it and to
tie myself up as well as any chirurgeon in the kingdom.

Having seen to my injuries I had now to attend to my appearance, for
in truth I might have stood for one of those gory giants with whom the
worthy Don Bellianis of Greece and other stout champions were wont to
contend. No woman or child but would have fled at the sight of me, for
I was as red as the parish butcher when Martinmas is nigh. A good wash,
however, in the brook soon removed those traces of war, and I was
able to get the marks off my breastplate and boots. In the case of my
clothes, however, it was so hopeless to clean them that I gave it up in
despair. My good old horse had been never so much as grazed by steel or
bullet, so that with a little watering and tending he was soon as fresh
as ever, and we turned our backs on the streamlet a better-favoured pair
than we had approached it.

It was now going on to mid-day, and I began to feel very hungry, for I
had tasted nothing since the evening before. Two or three houses stood
in a cluster upon the moor, but the blackened walls and scorched thatch
showed that it was hopeless to expect anything from them. Once or twice
I spied folk in the fields or on the roadway; but at sight of an armed
horseman they ran for their lives, diving into the brushwood like wild
animals. At one place, where a high oak tree marked the meeting of three
roads, two bodies dangling from one of the branches showed that the
fears of the villagers were based upon experience. These poor men had in
all likelihood been hanged because the amount of their little hoardings
had not come up to the expectations of their plunderers; or because,
having given all to one band of robbers, they had nothing with which
to appease the next. At last, when I was fairly weary of my fruitless
search for food, I espied a windmill standing upon a green hill at
the other side of some fields. Judging from its appearance that it had
escaped the general pillage, I took the pathway which branched away to
it from the high-road. (Note J, Appendix