old and much worn, there was the same look of deftness and trimness,
and even beauty, about every detail in them which I noticed before in
the field-work. They were all roofed with oak shingles, mostly grown
as grey as stone; but one was so newly built that its roof was yet
pale and yellow. This was a corner house, and the corner post of it
had a carved niche wherein stood a gaily painted figure holding an
anchor--St. Clement to wit, as the dweller in the house was a
blacksmith. Half a stone's throw from the east end of the churchyard
wall was a tall cross of stone, new like the church, the head
beautifully carved with a crucifix amidst leafage. It stood on a set
of wide stone steps, octagonal in shape, where three roads from other
villages met and formed a wide open space on which a thousand people
or more could stand together with no great crowding.

All this I saw, and also that there was a goodish many people about,
women and children, and a few old men at the doors, many of them
somewhat gaily clad, and that men were coming into the village street
by the other end to that by which I had entered, by twos and threes,
most of them carrying what I could see were bows in cases of linen
yellow with wax or oil; they had quivers at their backs, and most of
them a short sword by their left side, and a pouch and knife on the
right; they were mostly dressed in red or brightish green or blue
cloth jerkins, with a hood on the head generally of another colour.
As they came nearer I saw that the cloth of their garments was
somewhat coarse, but stout and serviceable. I knew, somehow, that
they had been shooting at the butts, and, indeed, I could still hear a
noise of men thereabout, and even now and again when the wind set from
that quarter the twang of the bowstring and the plump of the shaft in
the target.