"
They had passed over the wild moors and had come down now into the
main road by which the pilgrims from the west of England made
their way to the national shrine at Canterbury. It passed from
Winchester, and up the beautiful valley of the Itchen until it
reached Farnham, where it forked into two branches, one of which
ran along the Hog's Back, while the second wound to the south and
came out at Saint Catherine's Hill where stands the Pilgrim
shrine, a gray old ruin now, but once so august, so crowded and so
affluent. It was this second branch upon which Nigel and Aylward
found themselves as they rode to Guildford.
No one, as it chanced, was going the same way as themselves, but
they met one large drove of pilgrims returning from their journey
with pictures of Saint Thomas and snails' shells or little leaden
ampullae in their hats and bundles of purchases over their
shoulders. They were a grimy, ragged, travel-stained crew, the
men walking, the women borne on asses. Man and beast, they limped
along as if it would be a glad day when they saw their homes once
more. These and a few beggars or minstrels, who crouched among
the heather on either side of the track in the hope of receiving
an occasional farthing from the passer-by, were the only folk they
met until they had reached the village of Puttenham. Already
there, was a hot sun and just breeze enough to send the dust
flying down the road, so they were glad to clear their throats
with a glass of beer at the ale-stake in the village, where the
fair alewife gave Nigel a cold farewell because he had no
attentions for her, and Aylward a box on the ear because he had
too many.
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