“And just ready for the job thyself, I’se warrant,” bitterly snarled the exasperated husband.  The storm, long threatening, was about to burst forth; but the palmer, with holy and beseeching words, soothed for awhile the angry disputants, at the same time intimating that a guide was unnecessary, the situation of the house being sufficiently obvious from whatever quarter he might direct his steps.

The stranger seemed not solicitous of repose, and Giles was too sulky to inquire his wants.  The dame, however, drew a bundle of clean straw from a huge heap, and threw it beside the hearth.  A coarse and heavy rug, over which was thrown a sheep-skin with the wool innermost, constituted a warm but homely couch.  A horn cup filled with cider and a burnt barley-cake were next exhibited, of which the palmer made a healthful, if not a sumptuous repast.  Giles growled off to the loft above; and the dame, caring little for the sequel of her husband’s humours, soon found a resting-place by his side.

Morning shone brightly and cheerfully through the chinks and crevices of both door and lattice; but the pilgrim’s couch was yet unsought.  His vigils had been undisturbed, save when the baying of some vagrant and ill-disciplined dogs, or the lusty carol of some valiant yeoman, reeling home after a noisy debauch, startled him from a painfully-recurring thought, to which, however, the mind involuntarily turned when the interruption had ceased.

It was late ere Giles awoke.  Breathless with expectation, he hastened below, anticipating a rich budget of news from his guest; but he had departed.

It was one of those fresh and glittering mornings which autumn alone can produce.  Keen, pure, and exhilarating, the air seemed all buoyant and elastic, tinging the cheeks with ruddy health, and animating the whole frame with renewed vigour.

A slight hoar-frost yet lay on the thatched roofs.  Calm and undisturbed, a gem-like brightness twinkled from every object; whilst the vapours that covered them looked not as the shroud, but rather as a pure mantle of eider, hiding the fair bosom to which it clung.

The pilgrim entered a narrow street leading to the postern or gate, called Standish-gate.  In those days it was not, as now, a wide and free thoroughfare for man and beast.  At the accustomed fairs, toll is, to this time, demanded on all cattle changing owners at the several outlets, where formerly stood four gates; to wit, Wall-gate, Hall-gate, Mill-gate, and Standish-gate.  Each gate where the toll-bars now stand was once, in good sooth, a heavy barrier of stout beams, thickly studded with iron.  Through the night they were generally bolted and guarded by a company of the mayor’s halberdiers.  An irregular wall encompassed the town, save on the eastern side, where the river Douglas seemed, in the eyes of the burghers, to constitute a sufficient defence, a low abbatis only screening its banks.  The walls were covered, or rather uncovered, by a broad ditch: