Page:The Wouldbegoods.djvu/289

 "We ought to have pease in our shoes," he said. But we did not think so. We knew what a very little stone in your boot will do, let alone pease.

Of course we knew the way to go to Canterbury because the old Pilgrims' Road runs just above our house. It is a very pretty road, narrow, and often shady. It is nice for walking, but carts do not like it because it is rough and rutty; so there is grass growing in patches on it.

I have said that it was a fine day, which means that it was not raining, but the sun did not shine all the time.

Tis well, O Knight," said Alice, "that the orb of day shines not in undi—what's-its-name?—splendor."

"Thou sayest sooth, Plain Pilgrim," replied Oswald. Tis jolly warm even as it is."

"I wish I wasn't two people," Noël said, "it seems to make me hotter. I think I'll be a Reeve or something."

But we would not let him, and we explained that if he hadn't been so beastly particular Alice would have been half of him, and he had only himself to thank if being all of a Nun-Priest made him hot.

But it was warm certainly, and it was some time since we'd gone so far in boots. Yet when H. O. complained we did our duty as pilgrims and made him shut up. He did as soon as Alice said that about whining and grizzling being below the dignity of a Manciple.

It was so warm that the Prioress and the wife of