uous stream, like a sluggish, winding
river, and well nigh as unceasing.

Michael again did ask permission to be absent for a little while, that
he might escort the old ladies unto their seats, and protect them in
the enormous crowd. In a short time we saw his head moving towards the
rows of seats, as he brushed aside, as though they had been reeds, the
groups of angry tradesmen, that he might make way for those which he
did escort.

"What friends of Michael's are those same old ladies, to which he
showeth such faithful attention and care?" asked Frederick.

"Thou knowest them as well as I."

"Nay, but hast thou never asked him?"

"No; I thought it of but little moment until now. But methinks that I
have seen those same figures somewhere ere this; though where, I cannot
now recall," said I, as Michael and his charge appeared from out the
crowd. "I will ask Michael when he returns."

But ere my squire did return the heralds rode into the lists, and
started their tedious recitation of the rules of that day's sports; the
which we were so absorbed in listening to, in the effort to gather some
small particle of sense from, that I thought not of that which I had
intended asking Michael.

The marshals then entered the field, and took up their customary
positions to enforce the rules of the joust; the which were, as near as
I could make out, not different from the first day's.

"There, Walter, I have won my wager; for, if mine eyes do serve me
aright, thine ancient foe, Catesby, hath taken his place among the
King's guards."

"Thou art right; the cloak is thine. But see! he wears not his armour,
although his both arms appear to be whole and sound."

"True, your treatment of him yesterday hath been sufficient to satisfy
his appetite for glory and revenge, such as he obtained in the lists."

Then, as mine enemy turned his head, Michael, who was now standing
behind me, exclaimed, in a voice low but heavy, like the roll of
distant thunder:--"The damned villain's head is cracked; fer look at
the clout that shows beneath his cap. Sure its bad luck that the blow
that did it stopped ere it rached the varmint's chin."

* * * * *

That evening, as we journeyed slowly and wearily back from the field
that had been during the last two days the scene of so many noble feats
of arms, and of which nothing now remained but the long and narrow
strip of sandy ground where the sod had been removed to l