I shall never forget their wedding-day; it should
rather have been her burying, by the look on't. Her long veil was more
like a winding-sheet than a bride's wimple."
During this recital the palmer drew his seat closer to the hearth. He
leant him over his staff, absorbed in that conscious stupor which seems
at once shut out from all connection with external objects, and yet
intensely alive to their impressions. Suddenly he rose, tightened his
sandals, and looking round, appeared as if about to depart.
"It is our late master's birthday," said the loquacious informant: "ten
years ago there was free commons at the hall for man and beast. Now,
save on almous-days, when some half-dozen doitering old bodies get a
snatch at the broken meat, not a man of us thrusts his nose into the
knight's buttery but by stealth. Sir William's banner has not been
hoisted, as it was wont on this day, since he left, with fifty armed men
in his train, to help the king, then hard pressed in the Scottish wars.
Ye may get an alms among the poor to-day, but have an eye to the Welsh
bowmen: these be the knight's privy guard, and hold not the quality of
his guests in much respect.
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