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 on it, and
looked about me bewildered.

To my left was a house somewhat set back from the general line that
had a little patch of garden ground in front of it in which grew some
untended and thriftless-looking shrubs. This house seemed to be a place
of business because from an iron fastened to the front of it hung a
board on which was painted an open boat, high at the prow and stern,
with a tall beak fashioned to the likeness of a dragon's head and round
shields all down the rail.