not with grain or madder; and that the valiant tiler of Dartford had
smitten a poll-groat bailiff to death with his lath-rending axe for
mishandling a young maid, his daughter; and that the men of Kent were
on the move.

Now, knowing all this I was not astonished that they shouted at the
thought of their fellows the men of Essex, but rather that they said
little more about it; only Will Green saying quietly, "Well, the
tidings shall be told when our fellowship is greater; fall-to now on
the meat, brother, that we may the sooner have thy tale." As he spoke
the blue-clad damsel bestirred herself and brought me a clean
trencher--that is, a square piece of thin oak board scraped clean--and
a pewter pot of liquor. So without more ado, and as one used to it, I
drew my knife out of my girdle and cut myself what I would of the
flesh and bread on the table. But Will Green mocked at me as I cut,
and said, "Certes, brother, thou hast not been a lord's carver, though
but for thy word thou mightest have been his reader. Hast thou seen
Oxford, scholar?"

A vision of grey-roofed houses and a long winding street and the sound
of many bells came over me at that word as I nodded "Yes" to him, my
mouth full of salt pork and rye-bread; and then I lifted my pot and we
made the clattering mugs kiss and I drank, and the fire of the good
Kentish mead ran through my veins and deepened my dream of things
past, present, and to come, as I said: "Now hearken a tale, since ye
will have it so. For last autumn I was in Suffolk at the good town of
Dunwich, and thither came the keels from Iceland, and on them were
some men of Iceland, and many a tale they had on their tongues; and
with these men I foregathered, for I am in sooth a gatherer of tales,
and this that is now at my tongue's end is one of them."