Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/186

 of Uske are declared free and exempt of all murage, pontage, pickage, tronage, kayage, lastage, passage, portage and terrage throughout the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and Gascony, and Aquitaine and all other lands within the Realm of England, both on this side the sea and beyond the seas. From the street to the left the town musique advanced to meet them, and so soon as the procession was at the foot of the steps, their melody began, and the minstrels went forth before the tabarders down the street unto the river till they reached the Water Gate. Hither we followed them, through the press, amid a din and clamour indescribable; and when we gained the water side, we found the whole pomp standing in a half-circle by the gate with a trumpeter at either end and the Portreeve in the middle; and the musick was hushed. "Now watch the river," said Nick Leonard, "for it is time for the officer of our Sokage to appear from above the bridge, since he by a fiction is supposed to row in a boat all the way from Abergavenny, but to speak exactly, steps into a coracle a few yards beyond the bridge." So I looked up the river and presently a small wicker boat, used in these waters shot under the bridge, and in it was Phil Ambrose the Spigot Clerk of the Cwrw Dda, for this was his office if he were present. And guiding his craft skilfully across the rapids, he brought it to a stand over against the water-gate, and took out a great roll of parchment, which he held in his hand. To whom the Portreeve, "Whence come you, and on what errand?" Then the clerk