His followers, who were only paid with the wages of hope, began to murmur and fall off; for, as those unenlightened days were ignorant of the happy invention of paper machinery, by which one promise to pay is satisfactorily paid with another promise to pay, and that again with another in infinite series, they would not, as their wiser posterity has done, take those tenders for true pay which were not sterling; so that, one fine morning, the knight found himself sitting on a pleasant bank of the Trent, with only a solitary squire, who still clung to the shadow of preferment, because he did not see at the moment any better chance of the substance.
The knight did not despair because of the desertion of his followers: he was well aware that he could easily raise recruits if he could once find trace of his game; he, therefore, rode about indefatigably over hill and dale, to the great sharpening of his own appetite and that of his squire, living gallantly from inn to inn when his purse was full, and quartering himself in the king's name on the nearest ghostly brotherhood when it happened to be empty.

An autumn and a winter had passed away, when the course of his perlustations brought him one evening into a beautiful sylvan valley, where he found a number of young women weaving garlands of flowers, and singing over their pleasant occupation.

He approached them, and courteously inquired the way to the nearest town.
"There is no town within several miles," was the answer.
"A village, then, if it be but large enough to furnish an inn ?" "There is Gamwell just by, but there is no inn nearer than the nearest town." "An abbey, then ?" "There is no abbey nearer than the nearest inn." "A house then, or a cottage, where I may obtain hospitality for the night ?" "Hospitality!" said one of the young women; "you have not far to seek for that.

Do you not know that you are in the neighbourhood of Gamwell-Hall ?" "So far from it," said the knight, "that I never heard the name of Gamwell-Hall before." "Never heard of Gamwell-Hall ?" exclaimed all the young women together, who could as soon have dreamed of his never having heard of the sky.
"Indeed, no," said Sir Ralph; "but I shall be very happy to get rid of my ignorance." "And so shall I," said his squire; "for it seems that in this case knowledge will for once be a cure for hunger, wherewith I am grievously afflicted." "And why are you so busy, my pretty damsels, weaving these garlands ?" said the knight.
"Why, do you not know, sir," said one of the young women, "that to-morrow is Gamwell feast ?" The knight was again obliged, with all humility, to confess his ignorance.
"Oh! sir," said his informant, "then you will have something to see, that I can tell you; for we shall choose a Queen of the May, and we shall crown her with flowers, and place her in a chariot of flowers, and draw it with lines of flowers, and we shall hang all the trees with flowers, and we shall strew all the ground with flowers, and we shall dance with flowers, and in flowers, and on flowers, and we shall be all flowers." "That you will," said the knight; "and the sweetest and brightest of all the flowers of the May, my pretty damsels." On which all the pretty damsels smiled at him and each other.
"And there will be all sorts of May-games, and there will be prizes for archery, and there will be the knight's ale, and the foresters' venison, and there will be Kit Scrapesqueak with his fiddle, and little Tom Whistlerap with his fife and tabor, and Sam Trumtwang with his harp, and Peter Muggledrone with his bagpipe, and how I shall dance with Will Whitethorn!" added the girl, clapping her hands as she spoke, and bounding from the ground with the pleasure of the anticipation.
A tall athletic young man approached, to whom the rustic maidens courtesied with great respect; and one of them informed Sir Ralph that it was young Master William Gamwell.

The young gentleman invited and conducted the knight to the hall, where he introduced him to the old knight his father, and to the old lady his mother, and to the young lady his sister, and to a number of bold yeomen, who were laying siege to beef, brawn, and plum pie around a ponderous table, and taking copious draughts of old October.