“Having come safely through the wilderness, we entered Bethlehem as it chanced upon Christmas Eve, and the town was full of pilgrims and travelers, so that we had to find shelter where we could.  The inns there are builded in a very old fashion.  I think they have not changed since the time of our Lord.  A large open space is walled in with mud or brick or stone, and hath a well in the middle.  Around the inside of the walls are shelters for horses and pack animals, and sometimes—­not always—­there is a house where rooms are let to those who can pay.  The one at our inn was already crowded, so that we had to make shift with fresh straw in the stalls with our beasts.  They gave us flat unleavened cakes of bread, dried dates, and something like frumenty, with kebobs of mutton roasted, and water to drink.  When we had supped we sat about on our baggage and watched the people still coming in,

“You have never seen a camel?  No?  They be marvelous beasts.  They stand taller than the tallest charger, and travel like the wind on four feet.  I saw three humps like mountains against the sky, coming in at the gate, and the beasts kneeled down at the word of command and were unloaded.  Their masters came from the East, somewhere beyond Arabia, and were wise in the lore of the stars.  How know I that?  Wait and I will tell.

“Shepherds came also with their sheep, softly bleating and huddling in their cramped quarters.  Last of all came a poor man and his wife with a very small babe, and they and their donkey took the last bit of space in our corner.

“I tell you it is surprising what men will do for a tiny child and its tender mother.  There was a grumpy old Flanders merchant in our company, who thought only of his own comfort, but now he sent his servant to take a mantle to the mother because she looked like his daughter at home, who had named her boy for him.  And there was a peevish clerk who had paid for the last bowl of pottage they had, who gave it to the little family and supped on bread.

“Weary as we were, and much as our bones ached, we found solace in looking at the child as it slept and thinking of the children we had known at home.  I think,” the knight added with a half smile, “that if it had wakened and cried out, the spell might have broken.  But it was a sweet small thing, and it slumbered as if it had been cradled in down.

“Through the still air we heard the bells calling the monks to prayer.  And then the baby woke, and looked about with wondering innocent eyes, and stretched out its little hands and laughed.  I would you could have seen that grave company then.  Every man of them sought a share in that sweet sudden laughter.  The merchant dangled his gold chain, the clerk made clownish gestures, the merchant put a golden zecchin into the tiny fingers for a toy.  And when it slept again we slept also, or watched the stars and thought of that star which long ago stood over Bethlehem.