rret. Doors were thrown open that had not
always swung wide on their hinges, and open house was kept in many
quarters.

Towards noon a man mounted the steps in the Market Place, and read
this first of the King's proclamations and nailed it to the Cross.

A company of red-coated soldiers were marched from the Castle Hill to
the hill on the southwest, which had been thrown up six years before
by the russet-coated soldiery who had attacked and seized the castle.
Then they were marched back and disbanded for the night.

When darkness fell over highway and byway, fires were lit down the
middle of the narrow streets, and they sent up wide flakes of light
that brightened the fronts of the half-timbered houses on either side,
and shot a red glow into the sky, where the square walls of the
Dungeon Tower stood out against dark rolling clouds. Little knots of
people were at every corner, and groups of the baser sort were
gathered about every fire. Gossip and laughter and the click of the
drinking-horn fell everywhere on the ear. But the night was still
young, and order as yet prevailed.

The Market Place was the scene of highest activity. Numbers of men and
boys sat and stood on the steps of the Cross, discussing the
proclamation that had been read there. Now and again some youth of
more scholarship than the rest held a link to the paper, and lisped
and stammered through its bewildering sentences for the benefit of a
circle of listeners who craned their necks to hear.

The proclamation was against public vice and immorality of various
sorts which were unpunishable by law. It set forth that there were
many persons who had no method of expressing their allegiance to their
Sovereign but that of drinking his health, and others who had so
little regard for morality and religion as to have no respect for the
virtue of the female sex.

The loyaly of the Lancasterians might be unimpeachable, but their
amusement at the proclamation was equally beyond question.

"That from Charles Stuart!" said one, with a laugh; and he added, with
more familiarity of affection for his King than reverence for his
august state, "What a sly dog he is, to be sure!"

"Who is that big man in the long coat?" said another, who had not
participated in the banter of his companions on the Puritanical
devices of Charles and his cronies. He was jerking his head aside to
where a man whom we have known in other scenes was pushing his way
through the crowd.

"