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Updated: June 12, 2025
In the "good old times," on the contrary, a cavalier jogged on through bog and mire, from town to town and hamlet to hamlet, conversing with friars and franklins, and all other chance companions of the road; beguiling the way with travellers' tales, which then were truly wonderful, for every thing beyond one's neighbourhood was full of marvel and romance; stopping at night at some "hostel," where the bush over the door proclaimed good wine, or a pretty hostess made bad wine palatable; meeting at supper with travellers, or listening to the song or merry story of the host, who was generally a boon companion, and presided at his own board; for, according to old Tusser's "Innholder's Posie,"
Only those wide fens, across which he could not go, had kept our great King Kenwalch from pushing Wessex yet westward, and along their line had been our frontier since his days until, not long before Ina came to the throne, Kentwine crossed them to the north and cleared the marauding Welsh of the Quantock hills and forests from the river to the sea, setting honest Saxon franklins here and there in the new-won land, to keep it for him.
Country franklins got their wains out of our way with mighty confusion, and coaches drew aside for us to pass, and roadside brats scampered off with a scream of freebooters; but M. Radisson only laughed. "This is living," said he. "Give your nag rein, Jean! Whip and spur! Ramsay! Whip and spur! Nothing's won but at cost of a sting! Throw off those jack-boots, Jean! They're a handicap!
Then at either end of the hall were cross tables, where the thanes and their ladies had their places in due order, above the franklins whose cross tables were next to those of the house-carles. And then, right over against the south wall and across the fire on the hearth, was the longest table of all, and in the midst of that was the high place for the king and queen and a few others.
He was born in Boston within twenty yards of the church called "Old South," but the Franklins now lived at the corner of Congress and Hanover Streets, where to this day there swings in the breeze a gilded ball, and on it the legend, "Josiah Franklin, Soap-Boiler."
He seemed in no wise angry, but rather wishful that I should be with him, and so I got off my horse and went. But it crossed my mind that Wulfnoth the earl liked not to be alone, and suddenly I remembered the way in which two of our Bures franklins had spoken to each other when they would see Dame Gunnhild, Hertha's nurse. It was just in this same wise.
"Well, perhaps I shall not say no; I have been thinking the matter over, and I have talked with Benjamin; and my wife is not at all averse to going. But I can't say yes to-day; I may say it to-morrow, or sometime." "That is good," answered one of the neighbors; "we must have one of the Franklins with us to be well equipped.
You could tell that, whatever she might have lost, she had gained grace a glow from the Better Land gave her a heavenly cheerfulness. And Mary she had all her mother's sweetness without the shadow from past sorrows, and her laugh was as bright and joyous as the sunlit ripple on a lake in summer time. The Rothwells and Franklins, as old friends, exchanged a hearty but whispered greeting.
Back among the groves he could see the high gable ends and thatched roofs of the franklins' houses, on whose fields these men found employment, or more often a thick dark column of smoke marked their position and hinted at the coarse plenty within. By these signs Alleyne knew that he was on the very fringe of the forest, and therefore no great way from Christchurch.
Otherwise it is with these wolfheads as with lords and knights and franklins, that as there be bad amongst them, so also there be good; and the good ones I happed on, and so may another man." Hereto paid Ralph little heed at that time, since he had heard the tale and its morality before, and that more than once; and moreover his mind was set upon his own matters and these was he pondering.
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