Ha'vama'l.
From Edgeware, where the Watling Street left the Middlesex Forest to cross the
barren heath known as Tyburn Lane, the great road was crowded with travellers.
A small portion of them--messengers, soldiers, and hunting parties--were
riding northward, but the great mass was facing the City whither they were
pressing to warm themselves in the glow of the Coronation. On foot, on
horseback, in wagons and on crutches, they were as motley a throng as had ever
trod the Roman stones; and the respectable element among them was by no means
large enough to leaven the lump. Sometimes a group of merchants was to be
seen, conducting loaded wagons; sometimes, a thane's pompous thane, ensheathed
in his retinue; while occasionally, as they neared the New Gate, the crowd was
swelled by squads of the lesser Cheapside dealers making the daily pilgrimage
from their country dwellings to their stalls in the City. But these were as
scattered islands in the stream of half drunken seamen, masterless thralls,
wolf-eyed beggars, paupers, vagabonds and criminals, who were pushing toward
London in hopes of pleasure or gain or for want of another goal.
Amid such a rabble, and as out of place as a swarm of butterflies in frost-
silvered air, a band of high-born women was to be seen approaching the City
this early December morning.
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