Travelling in companies, in times when it was next to impossible to be on “visiting terms with one’s neighbours,” tended greatly to the improvement of social intercourse, and to the erection of roomy and comfortable inns for the wayfarers. It took Dan Chaucer only a few hours to be on the best footing with the nine and twenty guests at the Tabard. “Befelle that, in that season {18} on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury with devout corage, At night was come into that hostelrie Wel nine and twentie in a compagnie Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felawship; and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The chambres and the stables weren wide, And wel we weren esed attè beste. And shortly, whan the sonne was gone to reste So hadde I spoken with hem everich on, That I was of hir felawship anon.” But the tenants of the waste and the woodland were not the only lords of the highway. The Norman baron drew little profit from the natural produce of his ample domains. In his way he was a staunch protectionist; but he left agriculture very much to take care of itself, and looked to his tolls, his bridges, and above all to his highways, for a more rapid return of the capital he had invested in accoutring men-at-arms, squires, and archers. We know, from ‘Ivanhoe,’ how it fared with Saxons, Pilgrims, and Jews, whose business led them near the castles of Front de Bœuf or Philip de Malvoisin: and we are certain that the Lady of Branksome kept, an expensive establishment, who were expected to bring grist to the mill of the lord or lady of the demesne, by turning out in all weathers and at all hours, whenever a herd of beeves or a company of pilgrims were descried by the watchers from Branksome Towers. For it must have taken no small quantity of beef and hides to furnish the Branksome retainers in dinners and shoe- and saddle-leather; since— “Nine and twenty knights of fame Hung their shields in Branksome Hall: Nine and twenty squires of name Brought them their steeds to bower from stall: Nine and twenty yeomen tall Waited duteous on them all: They were all knights of mettle true, Kinsmen to the bold Buccleugh.” When the traveller carried money in his purse, or the merchant had store of Sheffield whittles or Woodstock gloves in his pack, the lowest dungeon in the castle of the Bigods was his doom; and he was a lucky man who came out again from those crypts which now so much delight our archæological associations, with a tithe of his possessions, or with his proper allowance of eyes, hands, and ears.