While he stood and talked I was able to take note of his aspect, and I thought he looked a very homely youth indeed, after Mr. Dacre, though he was taller and of a better shape, and I believe a better face too; though burnt with the sun, and ruddy like a country-man, he had well-cut features and a full mild eye, with a right pleasant smile. But his garb was so ordinary, being of some dark cloth, and cut very plainly, and his hat with no feather in it, that though I had little cause to love Mr. Dacre, yet I wished our new friend was more like him outwardly, and thought I should then have been prouder to ride in his company. And Mrs. Golding praising him to us, and saying how good he was, and wise beyond his years, I thought it was pity such good people as he and she did not go handsomer; so little I knew of what belonged to goodness. CHAPTER II. HOW WE JOURNEYED UP TO YORKSHIRE; AND HOW WE WERE WELCOMED THERE. Though I remember so plainly what passed on our last day in Milthorpe Manor-house, I am not very clear about our journey up to Yorkshire, which was tedious enough. We kept to the king's highway, and yet were sometimes put in much fear of thieves, but happily we fell in with none; the only notable thing that befell us was in leaving a little market town, I cannot call to mind its name, where we had stopped to dine. We had ridden but a little way forth of the town when we heard a great din of shouting and hooting behind us, which made us women afraid; and presently a noisy rabblement of people came running up. They were chiefly of the baser sort, both men and women, some very ragged, and some red-faced and half tipsy; one or two gentlemen in laced coats rode among them. I thought at first they had some spite at us, but it proved not so. We drew to the wayside to let them pass, and they went by, very disorderly, yelling and swearing, the women not less than the men, pushing and hauling some poor creature dragged along in their midst. I looked earnestly to see who it might be, and presently discerned the person--a tall thin man, in a kind of loose garment girded about him, and I think it was made of some hempen stuff, a kind of sacking. This man was very pale, with longish dark hair hanging about his face, which, as I say, was pale indeed, but not dismayed; I think he even smiled when one struck him on the head, and another, pushing him, bade him, with a curse, go faster. I saw the blood trickling a little from the blow that had alighted on his head, as they hurried him past. Andrew, who saw all this as well as I did, looked full of horror. He caught one of the hindmost of the rabble by the sleeve and asked him harshly, 'What has this man done, and whither are you taking him?' At which the man, turning towards us his red, jovial face, replies,--