brisk lads and smart, but had been afield after the beasts that
evening, and had not seen the fray.

The room we came into was indeed the house, for there was nothing but
it on the ground floor, but a stair in the corner went up to the
chamber or loft above. It was much like the room at the Rose, but
bigger; the cupboard better wrought, and with more vessels on it, and
handsomer. Also the walls, instead of being panelled, were hung with
a coarse loosely-woven stuff of green worsted with birds and trees
woven into it. There were flowers in plenty stuck about the room,
mostly of the yellow blossoming flag or flower-de-luce, of which I had
seen plenty in all the ditches, but in the window near the door was a
pot full of those same white poppies I had seen when I first woke up;
and the table was all set forth with meat and drink, a big salt-cellar
of pewter in the middle, covered with a white cloth.

We sat down, the priest blessed the meat in the name of the Trinity,
and we crossed ourselves and fell to. The victual was plentiful of
broth and flesh-meat, and bread and cherries, so we ate and drank, and
talked lightly together when we were full.

Yet was not the feast so gay as might have been. Will Green had me to
sit next to him, and on the other side sat John Ball; but the priest
had grown somewhat distraught, and sat as one thinking of somewhat
that was like to escape his thought. Will Green looked at his
daughter from time to time, and whiles his eyes glanced round the fair
chamber as one who loved it, and his kind face grew sad, yet never
sullen. When the herdsmen came into the hall they fell straightway to
asking questions concerning those of the Fellowship who had been slain
in the fray, and of their wives and children; so that for a while