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Introduction
Chapter I. The house of Loring
Chapter II. How the devil came to Waverley
Chapter III. The yellow horse of Crooksbury
Chapter IV. How the summoner came to the manor house of Tilford
Chapter V. How Nigel was tried by the abbot of Waverley
Chapter VI. In which lady Ermyntrude opens the iron coffer
Chapter VII. How Nigel went marketing to Guildford
Chapter VIII. How the king hawked on Crooksbury heath
Chapter IX. How Nigel held the bridge at Tilford
Chapter X. How the king greeted his seneschal of Calais
Chapter XI. In the hall of the knight of Duplin
Chapter XII. How Nigel fought the twisted man of Shalford
Chapter XIII. How the comrades journeyed down the old, old road
Chapter XIV. How Nigel chased the red ferret
Chapter XV. How the red ferret came to Cosford
Chapter XVI. How the king's court feasted in Calais Castle
Chapter XVII. The spaniards on the sea
Chapter XVIII. How Black Simon claimed forfeit from the king of Sark
Chapter XIX. How a squire of England met a squire of France
Chapter XX. How the English attempted the castle of la Brohiniere
Chapter XXI. How the second messenger went to Cosford
Chapter XXII. How Robert of Beaumanoir came to Ploermel
Chapter XXIII. How thirty of Josselin encountered thirty of Ploermel
Chapter XXIV. How Nigel was called to his master
Chapter XXV. How the king of France held counsel at Maupertuis
Chapter XXVI. How Nigel found his third deed
Chapter XXVII. How the third messenger came to Cosford
In the month of July of the year 1348, between the feasts of St. Benedict and of St. Swithin, a strange thing came upon England, for out of the east there drifted a monstrous cloud, purple and piled, heavy with evil, climbing slowly up the hushed heaven. In the shadow of that strange cloud the leaves drooped in the trees, the birds ceased their calling, and the cattle and the sheep gathered cowering under the hedges. A gloom fell upon all the land, and men stood with their eyes upon the strange cloud and a heaviness upon their hearts. They crept into the churches where the trembling people were blessed and shriven by the trembling priests. Outside no bird flew, and there came no rustling from the woods, nor any of the homely sounds of Nature. All was still, and nothing moved, save only the great cloud which rolled up and onward, with fold on fold from the black horizon. To the west was the light summer sky, to the east this brooding cloud-bank, creeping ever slowly across, until the last thin blue gleam faded away and the whole vast sweep of the heavens was one great leaden arch.
Then the rain began to fall. All day it rained, and all the night and all the week and all the month, until folk had forgotten the blue heavens and the gleam of the sunshine. It was not heavy, but it was steady and cold and unceasing, so that the people were weary of its hissing and its splashing, with the slow drip from the eaves. Always the same thick evil cloud flowed from east to west with the rain beneath it. None could see for more than a bow-shot from their dwellings for the drifting veil of the rain-storms. Every morning the folk looked upward for a break, but their eyes rested always upon the same endless cloud, until at last they ceased to look up, and their hearts despaired of ever seeing the change. It was raining at Lammas-tide and raining at the Feast of the Assumption and still raining at Michaelmas. The crops and the hay, sodden and black, had rotted in the fields, for they were not worth the garnering. The sheep had died, and the calves also, so there was little to kill when Martinmas came and it was time to salt the meat for the winter. They feared a famine, but it was worse than famine which was in store for them.
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He turned with a rush, and one magnificent deer-like bound carried him over the four-foot gate. Nigel's hat had flown off, and his yellow curls streamed behind him as he rose and fell in the leap. They were in the water-meadow now, and the rippling stream twenty feet wide gleamed in front of them running down to the main current of the Wey. The yellow horse gathered his haunches under him and flew over like an arrow. He took off from behind a boulder and cleared a furze-bush on the farther side. Two stones still mark the leap from hoof-mark to hoof-mark, and they are eleven good paces apart. Under the hanging branch of the great oak-tree on the farther side (that Quercus Tilfordiensis ordiensis is still shown as the bound of the Abby's immediate precincts) the great horse passed. He had hoped to sweep off his rider, but Nigel sank low on the heaving back with his face buried in the flying mane. The rough bough rasped him rudely, but never shook his spirit nor his grip. Rearing, plunging and struggling, Pommers broke through the sapling grove and was out on the broad stretch of Hankley Down.
And now came such a ride as still lingers in the gossip of the lowly country folk and forms the rude jingle of that old Surrey ballad, now nearly forgotten, save for the refrain:
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