CHAPTER XXXVMarpasse of the blue gown had fallen in with old friends on the way to Tonbridge, where the King had taken the castle of Gilbert de Clare, and these same friends, ragamuffins all of them, were following the glittering chaos of the King’s host on the road to the sea. There would be plunder to be had if St. Nicholas would only persuade King Henry to take and sack the Cinque Port towns; and all the beggars, cut-throats and strollers in the kingdom rolled in the wash of the King’s host, terribly joyful over the happenings that might give them bones to pick.
The passing of fifty thousand armed men, to say nothing of the baggage rabble, was no blessing to the country folk whom it concerned. Lords, knights, men-at-arms, bowmen, scullions, horse-boys, and harlots went pouring southwar
