Their needs were simple, food and raiment, and they found both. Mellis went smiling into the little bed-chamber, and the great cupboard there gave a plain russet gown, a hooded cloak, rough hose, and a pair of shoes. She flung a green doublet and gray woolen hose out to Martin, and shut herself into the good folks’ room. Fulk de Lisle’s red cloak was stuffed up the stone chimney, and Martin found one of brown kersey to replace it, hanging on a nail beside an oak press. When Mellis came out to him she was the laughing country wench in russet, her hair tied with a green ribbon, her feet in rough shoes. Martin’s raiment kept hers company. He had discovered a green cloth cap with a raven’s feather stuck into it, and the thing hid that still too obvious tonsure of his. “Good-day to you, Goodman Martin.” He looked at her dearly. “Fine clothes do not make the woman.” “That is rank heresy, dear man; but if it contents you, I will not complain.” The larder gave them bread and honey, and Martin went with a pitcher to the well. They sat down at Jeremy Marvel’s table, and when they had ended the meal, Mellis left a piece of silver there to quiet her own conscience. “I doubt whether it will ever reach the poor clown’s pocket.” Which was true, for Jeremy Marvel lay dead on Bracknell Plain. Before they sallied Mellis took some linen from the press for the dressing of Martin’s wounds. Moreover, a loaf of bread was useful plunder, though Martin had found bread and meat and half a spiced cake in Fulk de Lisle’s saddle-bag. Mellis also insisted on his taking the pitcher. “Sling it to your saddle. We may bless it to-night.” The sun was low in the west when they struck the Rondel flowing between two broad stretches of wild grassland—grassland that was all white with ox-eyed daisies. They had to follow the river for a while, searching for a ford where ruffled water marked the shallows. Mellis’s eyes were watching for a cairn of stones that had been built by a hermit a century ago to show the depth of the river in winter. She pointed it out at last. “I thought that I had not strayed.” The stretch of sand below the bank was smooth and unscarred; no one had crossed by that ford for many days, and Mellis uttered a cry of relief. “This is the nearest way to Gawdy Town, and we are the first over. We shall be there before the news of Bracknell Plain. That comes of being bred in these parts.” They splashed across, and let their horses drink before climbing the farther bank. The grassland south of the river rose in great green sweeps to touch the wild woods east of Bloody Rood. A soft breeze sent patches of wavering green moving over the silver of the feathered grass tops and the flowers. Here and there a lark rose from its nest, or a plover went wheeling and complaining.