Along the road between the dykes came Mellis and Martin Valliant, trudging4 it on foot, their horses left wandering in the Forest. They looked like a country couple, Mellis in her rough shoes and russet gown, Martin in Lincoln green, a cudgel on his shoulder, and a couple of saddle-bags slung5 from it. He had thrown Fulk de Lisle’s sword and dagger6 into the Rondel, for such fine gear did not suit the cut of his clothes.
Mellis’s face seemed to shine with an inward light, and when Martin looked at her it was with eyes that said that she was the most wonderful thing in the wide world. He marched with a slight swing of the shoulders and a more adventurous7 carriage of the head. His manhood had lost its monkish8 distemper. Mellis had rescued him, and made him the lord of his own youth.
So they came to Gawdy Town, just before sunset and the closing of the gates. Women and children were coming in from the meadows and gardens without the walls, carrying baskets of flowers and herbs; there were wenches, too, who had been out milking, stepping along with pails of milk hanging from the yoke9 chains. Old gaffers toddled10 along the road, gossiping about swine and the hay crop. Not a soul had heard a whisper of the battle of Bracknell Plain.
Mellis and her man entered the north gate with this stream of milkmaids, children, gardeners, and farmer folk, and no one said them nay11. The porter had his face buried in a black jack12 as they passed, and Mellis laughed and glimmered13 her eyes at Martin.
“That fellow is a good Christian14. He sees only that which God meant him to see.”
Bells were ringing in Gawdy Town, bells great and small, for the people of Gawdy Town loved their bells. They were a folk, too, who delighted in color, on the fronts of their houses, in their signs, and in their clothes, and there was not a richer town in all the south. The great street between the gates looked as though it had been garnished15 for a pageant16; the plaster fronts of the houses were painted in reds and blues17 and greens and yellows; many of the barge-boards of the gables were gilded18; the people who filled the streets were a chequer of moving color, a gay and buxom19 crowd delighting in scarlets20 and bright greens and blues. Women leaned out of the windows and gossiped across the street, showing off their stomachers and the sleeves of their gowns.
Martin Valliant had never seen such a sight before. He shouldered a way for Mellis, trying not to stare at all these strange people, and at the quaint22 signs, and the rich stuffs in the shops. Some one blundered against his wounded shoulder, and he was not so meek23 over it as he would have been a month ago.
“Are they holding a fair in Gawdy Town?”
Mellis glanced at him mischievously24.
“I sent a herald25 forward, dear lad, and they are looking for us. This is but an ant-heap after all. Some day I will show you Rouen and Paris.”
“A quieter street would please me. Where is this Inn of the ‘Crossed Keys’?”
“I know it, down by the harbor. This way.”
She turned aside into a dark and narrow lane, where the gables of the houses nearly met overhead. Lines festooned the alley26, carrying all manner of garments hung out to dry. It was a lane of slatterns, and of dirty children playing in the gutters27, and the smell of it was not sweet.
“How does this please my lord?”
“I would sooner sleep in the woods.”
She drew close in under his arm.
“And so say I. A clean attic28 at the ‘Crossed Keys’ will serve. Pray God old Swartz is there.”
The lane led them down toward the harbor, where the painted masts and tops of the ships showed above the town wall. Here were the shops of the ships’ chandlers, and the place began to smell of tar21 and the sea. There were yards full of timber, spars, anchors, casks, old iron, chains, oars29, gratings, lanterns, and pumps. A rope-walk ran along the town wall, with pent-roofs for the storage of cables. The taverns30 and inns were for the men of the sea, boisterous31 houses full of strong liquor and loose women and foreign ship-men who were handy with their knives.
The Inn of the “Crossed Keys” lay a little way from the harbor and next to “Little Spain.” It was a solid and orderly inn, and no “stew” house; men of substance and many merchants
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