The train of pilgrims was entering the courtyard of one of them at the moment, and soon Betty and Godmother stood in the archway looking round at the quaint old place.
“This inn is called the Tabard,” Godmother told her. “It is the very one that Chaucer, now, as you observe, talking to the fat landlord, is going to describe as the meeting-place of his pilgrims.”
“What does the Tabard mean?” Betty asked, looking at the sign-board over the main door. “There’s something painted on that sign, but I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s meant for a coat worn by a herald, and sometimes also by knights over their armour. Such a coat is called a tabard in these fourteenth-century days. Now look well at this particular inn, because most of the other taverns are very like it, and this fashion of building lasted for years. In fact, there were some left in Southwark till quite lately, and even now there is just a corner of one still remaining. The inn you see follows three sides of this square courtyard. Look at the curiously-carved galleries running round two floors of it, and at the quaint gables above.”
“How pretty it looks to see all the pilgrims walking and sitting about,” exclaimed Betty. “And how they are chattering and laughing!”
She could have stayed for hours watching them and was sorry when presently they all remounted and with loud farewells to the jolly host of the Tabard, clattered out into the country road.
“Just think what miles of dull streets they would have to ride through if they were riding to Canterbury in our time,” she said.
“As it is,” said Godmother, “they’re in leafy lanes already, where the birds are singing and the banks are covered with wild flowers. That road they are taking to Canterbury, is still called the Pilgrim’s Way. The next time we take a country motor drive I’ll show you the continuation of it that runs over the green Surrey hills which by the end of the day those pilgrims will reach....”
“What shall we do now?” Betty inquired when the long procession was out of sight.
“Would you like to look on at a Miracle play?”