THE PORTREEVE'S SOLEMNITY
FROM ST. Madoc's Church to Uske is a short mile in distance and the road doth follow the river, passing under a high cliff mantled with trees; the same being a sweet road and a pleasant ennobled by the prospect of the embowered town, distant greeny hills, and the neighbourhood of the clearly flowing water. No sooner had we left the narrow by-way from Landevennoc than we were in the midst of a great throng of people, tramping a-foot, riding on horses, nags, and mules, and pressing forward, as we, unto the great solemnity. Here was a fine patchwork quilt, the which did one's eyes good to look at, for in one place was a piece of satin and gold lace, in another dusky subfusc tatters: there was a parson in his priest's cloak and cassock, there an esquire glittering with gold galoon, there an Egyptian with his bien morte, there a handsome, laughing maiden walking beside her lover. Close beside us were three comely wenches, berubanded like a Maypole, and with them joked three gentlemen of Newport who tried to perplex them and make them blush: and on the other side was an ecclesiastic tall and broad, riding on a proper nag, and especially cassocked and buckled up with silver. Behind him rode his serving man with his mails, and behind the serving man a rout
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