They rode upon mules and horses, and there was not a side-saddle in the party; for this specialty was to remain unknown in England for nine hundred years yet.
It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious, happy, merry and full of unconscious coarsenesses and innocent indecencies.

What they regarded as the merry tale went the continual round and caused no more embarrassment than it would have caused in the best English society twelve centuries later.

Practical jokes worthy of the English wits of the first quarter of the far-off nineteenth century were sprung here and there and yonder along the line, and compelled the delightedest applause; and sometimes when a bright remark was made at one end of the procession and started on its travels toward the other, you could note its progress all the way by the sparkling spray of laughter it threw off from its bows as it plowed along; and also by the blushes of the mules in its wake.
Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pilgrimage, and she posted me.

She said: "They journey to the Valley of Holiness, for to be blessed of the godly hermits and drink of the miraculous waters and be cleansed from sin." "Where is this watering place ?" "It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders of the land that hight the Cuckoo Kingdom." "Tell me about it.

Is it a celebrated place ?" "Oh, of a truth, yes.