o rob two men
with swords at their girdles like you and me, so we shall have no profit
from them."

They had passed over the wild moors and had come down now into the main
road by which the pilgrims from the west of England made their way to
the national shrine at Canterbury. It passed from Winchester, and up the
beautiful valley of the Itchen until it reached Farnham, where it forked
into two branches, one of which ran along the Hog's Back, while the
second wound to the south and came out at Saint Catherine's Hill where
stands the Pilgrim shrine, a gray old ruin now, but once so august, so
crowded and so affluent. It was this second branch upon which Nigel and
Aylward found themselves as they rode to Guildford.

No one, as it chanced, was going the same way as themselves, but they
met one large drove of pilgrims returning from their journey with
pictures of Saint Thomas and snails' shells or little leaden ampullae
in their hats and bundles of purchases over their shoulders. They were a
grimy, ragged, travel-stained crew, the men walking, the women borne
on asses. Man and beast, they limped along as if it would be a glad
day when they saw their homes once more. These and a few beggars or
minstrels, who crouched among the heather on either side of the track
in the hope of receiving an occasional farthing from the passer-by, were
the only folk they met until they had reached the village of Puttenham.
Already there, was a hot sun and just breeze enough to send the dust
flying down the road, so they were glad to clear their throats with a
glass of beer at the ale-stake in the village, where the fair alewife
gave Nigel a cold farewell because he had no attentions for her, and
Aylward a box on the ear because he had too many.

On the farther side of Puttenham the road runs through thick woods of
oak and beech, with a tangled undergrowth of fern and bramble. Here they
met a patrol of sergeants-at-arms, tall fellows, well-mounted, clad in
studded-leather caps and tunics, with lances and swords. They walked
their horses slowly on the shady side of the road, and stopped as the
travelers came up, to ask if they had been molested on the way.

"Have a care," they added, "for the 'Wild Man' and his wife are out.
Only yesterday they slew a merchant from the west and took a hundred
crowns."

"His wife, you say?"

"Yes, she is ever at his side, and has saved him many a time, for if he
has the strength it is she who has the wit. I