oaken floor.

It was an exciting time; for King Charles I and his cavaliers and the
army that they commanded had been beaten by Oliver Cromwell and the
soldiers of the Parliament at Naseby, in Northamptonshire, and the King
had lost all his baggage and his letters and papers. After this Charles
had been from place to place with his army, till he reached Oxford,
where his council was staying, and from this town he thought he should
be able either to get to London or to go northward and join the Scotch
army.

But news had just come to Sir Christopher Burroughs that Cromwell and
his general, Fairfax, had marched to Newbury, only a mile from Oxford;
and though the worthy knight of Stolham was not fighting for the King
any more than most of his neighbours in Norfolk were, he was more on the
side of the Royal cause than on that of the Parliament; so that the
report of the King's danger gave him a good deal of anxiety, and he and
his friends and their ladies were talking about it as they waited for
the butler to come and tell them that supper was ready. The troubles of
the times did not always prevent people from eating and drinking and
having merry-makings. The people around Stolham did not care enough for
the Royal cause to give up all pleasures; and some of them--friends of
Sir Christopher too--were more inclined to side with the Parliament and
the Puritan generals, though at present they said very little about it;
and Sir Christopher presently called out,--

"Well, we met not to talk of politics or of the King's affairs; so let
us to supper, though I cannot but say that I would fain see the ceasing
of this strife, and the King with his own again."

"Yes, with his own; but not with that which belongs to his subjects,"
said a farmer, who had been fined for not paying the taxes which the
King had ordered to be forced upon the people without the consent of
Parliament.

"Come, come," said Dame Burroughs, laughing and taking the farmer's arm,
"we women hear enough of such talk every day in the week; but to-morrow
will be May Day, and there will be open house to our friends, and for
the lads and lasses, dancing at the May-pole, and a supper in the barn.
Let us keep English hearts within us even in these dark times, and make
merry as we can."

"But methinks the May-pole is no more than a pagan thing, an idol to
encourage to vanity and profane dancing," said a sour-faced man, who had
been standing by the window.

"It may