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
close to the gaffer's chair, and seemed to be in waiting on the
company: she was clad in a close-fitting gown of bright blue cloth,
with a broad silver girdle daintily wrought, round her loins, a rose
wreath was on her head and her hair hung down unbound; the gaffer
grumbled a few words to her from time to time, so that I judged he was
her grandfather.
The men all looked up as we came into the room, my mate leading me by
the hand, and he called out in his rough, good-tempered voice, "Here,
my masters, I bring you tidings and a tale; give it meat and drink
that it may be strong and sweet."
"Whence are thy tidings, Will Green?" said one.
My mate grinned again with the pleasure of making his joke once more
in a bigger company: "It seemeth from heaven, since this good old lad
hath no master," said he.
"The more fool he to come here," said a thin man with a grizzled
beard, amidst the laughter that followed, "unless he had the choice
given him between hell and England.
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