It was, however, through the more fertile and less rugged part of England that William de Collingham and Oliver Icingla took their way, and for days rode on through bridle-roads which are now railways, and through forests which are now corn-fields, and past castle-protected hamlets which are now considerable towns. Nor were there many signs either in the appearance of the country or in the manner of the inhabitants to indicate that national affairs had reached a crisis which made civil war too probable. The herdsman drove out his cattle, the shepherd his sheep, and the swineherd his grunting herd; the charcoal-burner his cart, the waggoner his team of oxen; and the peasantry, in their smock-frocks, girt round the loins, and barely reaching to the knee, and their heads covered with a kind of hood--some of them with shoes and stockings, others with bare feet--went about their usual occupations as if peace had smiled on the land. Once the knight and squire met a pilgrim from the Holy Land carrying a palm-branch to deposit on the altar of his parish church, and other wayfarers whose errands, to judge by their looks, were equally peaceful. “Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, An abbot on an ambling pad; Sometimes a curly shepherd lad, Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad.” But it seemed as if the mandate sent throughout the land to lords and warriors to join the baronial standard had not been readily responded to, for hardly one band of armed men crossed their path. In fact, most people, except those who were very nearly concerned with the dispute between the king and the barons, were little disposed to involve themselves in a contest which was so problematical in its issue, and were rather inclined, so long as the contending parties left them at peace, to look quietly on, and await the result of a struggle which, they felt strongly, was too serious for them to take part in unless as a matter of necessity.