’twas there you learnt the French?”

“Ay, sir, from the monks.”

“Perhaps also thou hast learnt to read?” pursued the friar, with the smile with which in these days we might ask a ploughboy whether he knew Hebrew.

“A little,” said the boy modestly.

So unexpected was the answer, that the friar started back.

“Why this is amazing!” he said. “Edgar, dost thou hear?”

“Ay. He is training, no doubt, for the monastery,” said the lad carelessly, though looking at the other with amazement.

“Nay,” said the boy sturdily; “no monk’s hood for me. I would be a soldier and fight for King Edward.”

“And what knowest thou of King Edward?” inquired the friar, who evidently found amusement in questioning.

“What all the world knows,” the boy answered sturdily, “that never was a nobler king or truer Englishman.”

“Ay? Learnt you that in Flanders?” said the friar, lifting his eyebrows in some astonishment. “Well, wherever you had it, ’tis good teaching and true, such as men by-and-by will look back and own. And so nothing will serve thee but hard blows? What is thy name?”

“Hugh Bassett, holy friar.”

“Come to the great Stourbridge fair with thy father and mother?”

“My mother is dead. My father has brought some of his carvings here to sell, and we lodge in the sacristan’s house because ’tis too cold in the fields.”

Wolf, at a call from the young lad, had come back from an investigation among the oaks, and was now slobbering affectionately over his young master’s hand; Hugh watching him with deepest interest.

“There is one thing thou hast all but forgotten,” said the friar; “the names of thy tormentors? See, they are still watching and peeping.”

The boy again hung his head.

“What now? Hast lost thy tongue?”

“Nay, father, but—”

“But what?” Then as Hugh muttered something, “What, I am not to know? Yet they were for serving thee badly enough!”

“I would fight them again,” said the boy, looking up boldly.

“I warrant thou wouldst,” said the friar, laughing heartily. “And without a mother, who will mend thy clothes? They have suffered more damage than thy tough head, which looks as if ’twere made to bear blows.”

Hugh glanced with some dismay at his torn jerkin. It was not the first time that the question had presented itself, though the friar’s questions had driven it out of his head. And the elder lad now showed symptoms of impatience.

“May we not be going back, sir?” he said to his companion. “The jongleurs were to be at their play by now, and we are not like to see much out in this green tangle.”

“As thou wilt,” said the good-tempered friar; “I will but make one more proffer to our valiant friend. See here, Hugh, I have a fancy to know the name of the biggest of thine enemies, the one who set the others on thee. Will a groat buy the knowledge? There it is before thine eyes, true English coin, and no base counterfeit pollard. Only the name, and it is thine.”

“Not I!” cried the boy. “I’ll have nothing to do with getting him flogged.”

“Yet I’ll answer for it thy pocket does not see many groats, and what brave things there be to be bought at the fair! Sweets and comfits and spices.”

“They would choke me!”

The friar laughed long, with a fat, noiseless chuckle full of merriment.

“Well,” he said, “I keep my groat, and thou thine honour, and I see that Wolf hath shown himself, as ever, a dog of discretion. Shall we take the boy back to thy father’s lodgings, Edgar, and persuade Mistress Judith to bestow some of her fair mending upon his garments?”

“So as we waste no more time here, I care not,” said the lad impatiently.

Bidding the boy follow, Friar Nicholas and his companion walked away, leaving the wood with its undergrowth of bracken, already looking rather brown and ragged with the past heat of the summer, and first touch of frost sharpening the nights in the low-lying Eastern counties, as is often the case by Michaelmas. At that time, towards the end of the thirteenth century, it need hardly be said that the country presented a very different appearance from that which we see now. Parts were densely wooded, and everywhere trees made a large feature in the landscape, which was little broken by human habitations. The chief clearings were effected in order to provide sheep walks, wool being at that time a large, if not the largest, export; although matters had not as yet arrived at the condition of some fifty years later, when, after England was devastated by the Black Death, and agricultural labour became ruinously dear, serfs were evicted from their huts, and even towns destroyed, in order to gain pasturage for sheep. Under Edward the First things were tending the other way; marshes were drained, waste land was brought into cultivation, and towns were increasing in size and importance. Wheat was dear, animal food cheap. Some of the greater barons lived in almost royal state, but the smaller gentry in a simplicity which in these days would be considered absolute hardship.

With an absence of shops, and with markets bringing in no more than the local produce of a few miles round, it will be easily understood how fairs became a need of the times. They began by people flocking to some Church festival, camping out round the church, and requiring a supply of provisions. The town guilds, setting themselves to supply this want, found here such an opening for trade that the yearly fairs became the chief centres of commerce, and had a complete code of laws and regulations. Privileges were even granted to attract comers, for at a fair no arrest could be made for debts, saving such as were contracted at the fair itself. And it was a fruitful source of revenue, because upon everything bought a small toll was paid by the buyer.

Gradually these fairs increased in importance. English traders travelled to those across the seas, to Leipsic, to Frankfort, even to Russia. Foreigners in their turn brought their wares to England, where the principal yearly fair was held at Stourbridge, near Cambridge, another of scarcely less importance at Bristol, and somewhat lesser ones at Exeter and other towns.

The scene at these fairs, when the weather was favourable, was one of extreme gaiety and stir. As the friar and his young companion, followed by Hugh, walked back towards the town a soft autumnal sun was shining on the fields, where were all sorts of quaint and fantastic erections, and where the business of the fair was at its height. Such people as could find house-room were lodged in the town, but these only bore a moderate proportion to the entire throng, and the less fortunate or poorer ones were forced to be content with tents, rude sheds, and even slighter protection. These formed the background, or were tacked on to the booths on which the varied collection of wares were set forth, and which with their bright colourings gave the whole that gay effect which we now only see in the markets of the more mediaeval of foreign towns. To this must be added a large number of motley costumes: here not only were seen the different orders of English life—the great baron with his wife and children, his retinue, squires, men-at-arms, pages; the abbot riding in little less state; friars, grey, black, and