CHAPTER II

THE MAN FROM ESSEX

I entered the door and started at first with my old astonishment, with
which I had woke up, so strange and beautiful did this interior seem
to me, though it was but a pothouse parlour. A quaintly-carved side
board held an array of bright pewter pots and dishes and wooden and
earthen bowls; a stout oak table went up and down the room, and a
carved oak chair stood by the chimney-corner, now filled by a very old
man dim-eyed and white-bearded. That, except the rough stools and
benches on which the company sat, was all the furniture. The walls
were panelled roughly enough with oak boards to about six feet from
the floor, and about three feet of plaster above that was wrought in a
pattern of a rose stem running all round the room, freely and roughly
done, but with (as it seemed to my unused eyes) wonderful skill and
spirit. On the hood of the great chimney a huge rose was wrought in
the plaster and brightly painted in its proper colours. There were a
dozen or more of the men I had seen coming along the street sitting
there, some eating and all drinking; their cased bows leaned against
the wall, their quivers hung on pegs in the panelling, and in a corner
of the room I saw half-a-dozen bill-hooks that looked made more for
war than for hedge-shearing, with ashen handles some seven foot long.
Three or four children were running about among the legs of the men,
heeding them mighty little in their bold play, and the men seemed
little troubled by it, although they were talking earnestly and
seriously too. A well-made comely girl leaned up against the chimney