“For our goods, you mean. We want no begging friars or like cattle.”
“But I have a special message for thee, Kynewulf, well named; and for thee, Forkbeard; and for thee, Nick.”
“Ah! Whom have we got here?”
“An old friend under a new guise. Lead me to your chieftain, Grimbeard, who, I hope, is well. Or shall I show you the road?”
“Yes, if you know it. Art thou a wizard?”
“Nay, only a poor friar. Am I to lead or follow?”
“Lead, by all means. Then we shall know that thou canst do so.”
Martin, nothing loth, walked forward boldly, Ginepro more timidly by his side. They were such wild-looking outlaws. At last they reached a spring, and Martin left the beaten path, ascended a slope, and stood at the entrance to a large natural amphitheatre, not unlike an old chalk pit, such as men still hew from the side of the same hills.
But if the hand of man had ever wrought this one, it had been in ages long past, of which no record remained. The soft hand of nature had filled up the gaps and seams with creeping plants and bushes, and all deformities were hidden by her magic touch. Around the sides of the amphitheatre were twenty to thirty low huts of osier work, twined around tall posts driven into the ground and cunningly daubed with stiff clay. In the centre of the glade was a great fire, evidently common property, for a huge caldron steamed and bubbled over it, supported by three sticks placed cunningly so as to lend each other their aid in resisting the heavy weight, in accordance with nature’s own mechanics, which she teaches without the help of science {[25]}.
Before the fire, on a sloping bank, covered with the softest skins, lay the aged chieftain whom we met before. But now seven years had added their transforming touch, tempus edax rerum. His tall stature was diminished by a visible curve in its outline. His giant limbs and joints were less firmly knit.