The tooth-drawer and the gleeman called for a cup of small ale apiece, and started off together for Ringwood fair, the old jongleur looking very yellow in the eye and swollen in the face after his overnight potations.

The archer, however, who had drunk more than any man in the room, was as merry as a grig, and having kissed the matron and chased the maid up the ladder once more, he went out to the brook, and came back with the water dripping from his face and hair.
"Hola! my man of peace," he cried to Alleyne, "whither are you bent this morning ?" "To Minstead," quoth he.

"My brother Simon Edricson is socman there, and I go to bide with him for a while.

I prythee, let me have my score, good dame." "Score, indeed!" cried she, standing with upraised hands in front of the panel on which Alleyne had worked the night before.

"Say, rather what it is that I owe to thee, good youth.