and place her in a chariot of flowers,
and draw it with lines of flowers, and we shall hang all the trees with
flowers, and we shall strew all the ground with flowers, and we shall
dance with flowers, and in flowers, and on flowers, and we shall be all
flowers."

"That you will," said the knight; "and the sweetest and brightest of
all the flowers of the May, my pretty damsels." On which all the pretty
damsels smiled at him and each other.

"And there will be all sorts of May-games, and there will be prizes for
archery, and there will be the knight's ale, and the foresters' venison,
and there will be Kit Scrapesqueak with his fiddle, and little Tom
Whistlerap with his fife and tabor, and Sam Trumtwang with his harp,
and Peter Muggledrone with his bagpipe, and how I shall dance with
Will Whitethorn!" added the girl, clapping her hands as she spoke, and
bounding from the ground with the pleasure of the anticipation.

A tall athletic young man approached, to whom the rustic maidens
courtesied with great respect; and one of them informed Sir Ralph that
it was young Master William Gamwell. The young gentleman invited and
conducted the knight to the hall, where he introduced him to the old
knight his father, and to the old lady his mother, and to the young lady
his sister, and to a number of bold yeomen, who were laying siege to
beef, brawn, and plum pie around a ponderous table, and taking copious
draughts of old October. A motto was inscribed over the interior door,--

EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY:

an injunction which Sir Ralph and his squire showed remarkable alacrity
in obeying. Old Sir Guy of Gamwell gave Sir Ralph a very cordial
welcome, and entertained him during supper with several of his best
stories, enforced with an occasional slap on the back, and pointed with
a peg in the ribs; a species of vivacious eloquence in which the old
gentleman excelled, and which is supposed by many of that pleasant
variety of the human spectes, known by the name of choice fellows and
comical dogs, to be the genuine tangible shape of the cream of a good
joke.

CHAPTER VI

What! shall we have incision? shall we embrew?
--Henry IV.

Old Sir Guy of Gamwell, and young William Gamwell, and fair Alice
Gamwell, and Sir Ralph Montfaucon and his squire, rode together the
next morning to the scene of the feast. They arrived on a village green,
surrounded with cottages peeping from among the trees by which the
green was co