Affairs had gone steadily from bad to worse.  After the incident—­ or, as some blasphemously called it, the miracle—­at Cana, Bishop Chuff had commenced ruthless warfare.  Enraged beyond control by the perfidy of his daughter, he had sent out the armies of the Pan-Antis to wreak vengeance on every human enterprise that could be suspected of complicity in the matter of fermentation.  Not only had the countryside been laid waste, but the printing press had been abolished and all publishing trades were now a thing of the past.  This, of course, had thrown Dunraven Bleak out of a job.  He had retrieved his wife and children from the seashore, and in company with Quimbleton and Miss Chuff, and the noble and faithful horse John Barleycorn, they had led a nomad existence for weeks, flying from bands of pursuing chuffs, and bravely preaching their illicit gospel of good cheer in the face of terrible dangers.

The girl, who was indeed the Jeanne d’Arc of their cause, was their sole means of subsistence.  It was her psychic powers that made it possible for them, in a furtive way, to give their little entertainments.  Their method was, on reaching a village where there were no chuff troops, to distribute certain handbills which Bleak had been able to get printed by stealth.  These read thus: 

The six QUIMBLETONS or The Decanterbury Pilgrims In Their Artistic
Revival Of Old and Entertaining Customs, Tableaux Vivants Vanished
Arts, Folklore Games and Conjuring Tricks Such as The Drinking of
Healths, Toasts, Nosepainting, The Lifted Elbow, Let’s Match For
It, Say When, Light or Dark? and This One’s On Me.  Communion with
departed spirits Please Do Not Leave Before the Hat Goes Round

Having taken their station in some not too prominent place, Bleak would mount the wheelbarrow and play Coming Through the Rye on a jew’s-harp.  This, his sole musical accomplishment, was exceedingly distasteful to him:  all his training had been in the anonymity of a newspaper office, and he felt his public humiliation bitterly.

When a crowd had gathered, Quimbleton would ascend the barrow and make a brief speech (of a highly inflammatory and treasonable nature) after which he would set up the small table and the brass rail, produce a white apron and a tumbler from his knapsack, and introduce Theodolinda for an alcoholic trance.  It was found that the public entered into the spirit of these seances with great gusto, and often the collection taken up was gratifyingly large.  However, the life was hazardous in the extreme, and they were in perpetual danger of meeting secret service agents.  It was only by repeated private trances of their own that they were able to keep up their morale.

Reaching a bend in the way, where a grove of trees cast a grateful shade, the Decanterbury Pilgrims halted to rest.  Quimbleton helped Theodolinda down from her horse, and they all sat sadly by the roadside.