WAYFARING HOME 273

“ Again? Oh, yes, or, la! another one—there ’s plenty
in the weeds.”

And so they fared all afternoon, until at dusk they
came to Chipping Norton across the fields, a short cut to
where the thin blue supper-smoke curled up. The mists
were rising from the meadows; earth and sky were blend-
ing on the hills; a little silver sickle moon hung in the
fading violet, low in the western sky. Under an old oak
in a green place a fiddler and a piper were playing, and
youths and maidens were dancing in the brown light.
Some little chaps were playing blindman’s-buff near by,
and the older folk were gathered by the tree.

Nick came straight to where they stood, and bowing,
he and Cicely together, doffed his cap, and said in his most
London tone, “ We bid ye all good-e’en, good folk.”

His courtly speech and manner, as well as his clothes
and Cicely’s jaunty gown, no little daunted the simple
country folk. Nobody spoke, but, standing silent, all
stared at the two quaint little vagabonds as mild kine stare
at passing sheep in a quiet lane.

“We need somewhat to eat this night, and we want a
place to sleep,” said Nick. ‘The beds must be right clean
—we have good appetites. If ye can do for us, we will
dance for you anything that ye may desire—the ‘Queen’s
Own Measure,’ ‘La Donzella, the new ‘Allemand’ of my
Lord Pembroke, a pavone or a tinternell, or the ‘Gall-
iard of Savoy.” Which doth it please you, mistresses?”
and he bowed to the huddling young women, who scarcely
knew what to make of it.

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