y the entrance to the small park, she thought that she might
at any rate encourage the yeomen by her presence, as she could not
induce her more fashionable guests to mix with them in their manly
amusements. Accordingly she once more betook herself to the quintain
post.

Here to her great delight she found Harry Greenacre ready mounted,
with his pole in his hand, and a lot of comrades standing round him,
encouraging him to the assault. She stood at a little distance and
nodded to him in token of her good pleasure.

"Shall I begin, ma'am?" said Harry, fingering his long staff in a
rather awkward way, while his horse moved uneasily beneath him, not
accustomed to a rider armed with such a weapon.

"Yes, yes," said Miss Thorne, standing triumphant as the queen of
beauty on an inverted tub which some chance had brought thither from
the farmyard.

"Here goes then," said Harry as he wheeled his horse round to get the
necessary momentum of a sharp gallop. The quintain post stood right
before him, and the square board at which he was to tilt was fairly
in his way. If he hit that duly in the middle, and maintained his
pace as he did so, it was calculated that he would be carried out
of reach of the flour bag, which, suspended at the other end of the
cross-bar on the post, would swing round when the board was struck.
It was also calculated that if the rider did not maintain his pace,
he would get a blow from the flour bag just at the back of his
head, and bear about him the signs of his awkwardness to the great
amusement of the lookers-on.

Harry Greenacre did not object to being powdered with flour in the
service of his mistress and therefore gallantly touched his steed
with his spur, having laid his lance in rest to the best of his
ability. But his ability in this respect was not great, and his
appurtenances probably not very good; consequently, he struck his
horse with his pole unintentionally on the side of the head as he
started. The animal swerved and shied and galloped off wide of the
quintain. Harry, well-accustomed to manage a horse, but not to do
so with a twelve-foot rod on his arm, lowered his right hand to the
bridle, and thus the end of the lance came to the ground and got
between the legs of the steed. Down came rider and steed and staff.
Young Greenacre was thrown some six feet over the horse's head, and
poor Miss Thorne almost fell off her tub in a swoon.

"Oh, gracious, he's killed," shrieked a woman who w