it Midlent, but the day was the feast of a local saint, in whose honour
Lenten requirements were relaxed. Monks and priests were there in
plenty, and so were jugglers and maskers, Robin Hood and Marion, glee-men
and harpers, merchants and hucksters, masterful beggars and sorners,
shepherds in gray mauds with wise collies at their feet, shrewd old
carlines with their winter's spinning of yarn, lean wolf-like borderers
peaceable for the nonce, merry lasses with tow-like locks floating from
their snoods, all seen by the intensely glittering sun of a clear March
day, dry and not too cold for these hardy northern folk.

Nigel, the squire, sighed in despondency; and Malcolm, who hated crowds,
and knew himself a mark for the rude observations of a free-spoken
populace, shrank up to him, when Sir James, nodding in time to the tones
of a bagpipe that was playing at the hostel door, flung his bridle to
Brewster the groom, laughed at his glum and contemptuous looks, merrily
hailed the gudewife with her brown face and big silver ear-rings, seated
himself on the bench at the long wooden table under the great garland of
fir-boughs, willow catkins, and primroses, hung over the boughs of the
tree, crossed himself, murmured his _Benedictus benedicat_, drew his
dagger, carved a slice of the haunch of ox on the table, offered it to
the reluctant Malcolm, then helping himself, entered into conversation
with the lean friar on one side of him, and the stalwart man-at-arms
opposite, apparently as indifferent as the rest of the company to the
fact that the uncovered boards of the table were the only trenchers, and
the salt and mustard were taken by the point of each man's dagger from
common receptacles dispersed along the board. Probably the only person
really disgusted or amazed was the English Brewster, who, though too
cautious to express a word of his feelings, preserved the most complete
silence, and could scarcely persuade himself to taste the rude fare.