as a band of carles going with their scythes to the hay-field; or a maiden
with her milking-pails going to her kine, barefoot through the seeding grass;
or a company of noisy little lads on their way to the nearest pool of
the stream that they might bathe in the warm morning after the warm night.
All these and more knew him and his armour and Falcon his horse, and gave
him the sele of the day, and he was nowise troubled at meeting them;
for besides that they thought it no wonder 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;