ad steel-caps on their heads, and some had body
armour, generally a "jack," or coat into which pieces of iron or horn
were quilted; some had also steel or steel-and-leather arm or thigh
pieces. There were a few mounted men among them, their horses being
big-boned hammer-headed beasts, that looked as if they had been taken
from plough or waggon, but their riders were well armed with steel
armour on their heads, legs, and arms. Amongst the horsemen I noted
the man that had ridden past me when I first awoke; but he seemed to be
a prisoner, as he had a woollen hood on his head instead of his helmet,
and carried neither bill, sword, nor dagger. He seemed by no means
ill-at-ease, however, but was laughing and talking with the men who
stood near him.

Above the heads of the crowd, and now slowly working towards the cross,
was a banner on a high-raised cross-pole, a picture of a man and woman
half-clad in skins of beasts seen against a background of green trees,
the man holding a spade and the woman a distaff and spindle rudely done
enough, but yet with a certain spirit and much meaning; and underneath
this symbol of the early world and man's first contest with nature were
the written words:

When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?

The banner came on and through the crowd, which at last opened where we
stood for its passage, and the banner-bearer turned and faced the
throng and stood on the first step of the cross beside me.

A man followed him, clad in a long dark-brown gown of coarse woollen,
girt with a cord, to which hung a "pair of beads" (or rosary, as we
should call it to-day) and a book in a bag. The man was tall and
big-boned, a ring of dark hair surrounded his priest's tonsure; his
nose was big but clear cut and with wide nostrils; his shaven face
showed a longish upper lip and a big but blunt chin; his mouth was big
and the lips closed firmly; a face not very noteworthy but for his grey
eyes well opened and wide apart, at whiles lighting up his whole face
with a kindly smile, at whiles set and stern, at whiles resting in that
look as if they were gazing at something a long way off, which is the
wont of the eyes of the poet or enthusiast.

He went slowly up the steps of the cross and stood at the top with one
hand laid on the shaft, and shout upon shout broke forth from the
throng. When the shouting died away into a silence of the human
voices, the bells were sti