Chaucer obtains the consent of the rest to his joining their fellowship, which, as he describes it, consisted of persons most dissimilar in class and character. The host of the Tabard joins the party also, and it is agreed that, to enliven the journey, each, in his turn, shall tell a story on the way. They then sup at a common table, drink wine, and go to bed; and at daybreak they start on their journey. They travelled evidently at a slow pace; and at Boughton-under-Blee--a village a few miles from Canterbury--a canon and his yeoman, after some hard riding, overtake them, and obtain permission to join the company. It would seem that the company had passed a night somewhere on the road, probably at Rochester,--and we should, perhaps, have had an account of their reception and departure, had the collection of the “Canterbury Tales” been completed by their author,--and that the canon sent his yeoman to watch for any company of travellers who should halt at the hostelry, that he might join them, but he had been too late to start with them, and had, therefore, ridden hard to overtake them:-- _His yeman eek was ful of curtesye,_ _And seid, “Sires, now in the morwe tyde_ _Out of your ostelry I saugh you ryde,_ _And warned heer my lord and soverayn,_ _Which that to ryden with yow is ful fayn,_ _For his disport; he loveth daliaunce.”_ --Cant. Tales, l. 12,515. A little further on, on the road, the Pardoner is called upon to tell his tale. He replies-- _“It schal be doon,” quod he, “and that anoon._ _But first,” quod he, “here, at this ale-stake,_ _I will both drynke and byten on a cake.”_ --Ibid., l. 13,735. [Illustration: _No. 215. A Pilgrim at the Ale-Stake._] [Illustration: _No. 216. The Road-side Inn._] The road-side ale-house, where drink was sold to travellers, and to the country-people of the neighbourhood, was scattered over the more populous and frequented parts of the country from an early period, and is not unfrequently alluded to in popular writers. It was indicated by a stake projecting from the house, on which some object was hung for a sign, and is sometimes represented in the illuminations of manuscripts. Our cut No. 215, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), represents one of those ale-houses, at which a pilgrim is halting to take refreshment. The keeper of the ale-house, in this instance, is a woman, the ale-wife, and the stake appears to be a besom. In another (No. 216), taken from a manuscript copy of the “Moralization of Chess,” by Jacques de Cessoles, of the earlier part of the fifteenth century (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), a round sign is suspended on the stake, with a figure in the middle, which may possibly be intended to represent a bush. A garland was not unfrequently hung upon the stake; on this Chaucer, describing his “sompnour,” says:--