with her
weapon that Halfman was obliged to skip back briskly to avoid
bringing his breast acquainted with her steel.

"Nay, woman, warily!" he shouted, half laughing, half angry. "Play
your play more tamely. I am no rascally Roundhead."

Mrs. Satchell grounded her weapon and wiped the sweat from her
shining forehead with the back of her red hand. There was a deadly
earnest in her eyes, a deadly earnest in her speech.

"I cry you mercy," she panted. "But I am a whole-hearted woman, and
when you bid me charge I am all for charging."

Halfman did his best to muffle amusement in a reproving frown. "Limit
your zeal discreetly," he urged, and was again the drill sergeant.

"Shoulder your pikes."

The weapons followed the words with some show of decorum.

"Comport your pikes."

Again the evolution was carried out with some degree of accuracy.

"Port your pikes."

Here all followed the word of command fairly well with the exception
of Garlinge's fellow-rustic, who simply strove to repeat the order
already executed. Halfman turned upon him sharply.

"Now, Clupp," he cried, "will you never learn the difference between
port and comport?"

Clupp, the fellow addressed, bashful at finding himself the object of
attention, swayed backward and forward with his pikestaff for a
pivot, laughing vacantly.

"No, sir," he gaped, stupidly. Master Halfman's lip wrinkled
menacingly, and he reached his hand to his staff that lay upon the
table.

"Indeed!" he said. "Then I must ask Master Crabtree Cudgel to lesson
you."

He advanced threateningly towards the terrified fellow, but long
before he could reach him Dame Satchell had interposed her generous
bulk between officer and private, not, however, as was soon shown,
from any desire to intercede for the culprit.

"Leave him to me, sir," she entreated, vehemently. "If you love me,
leave him to me."

And, indeed, her angry eyes shone warranty that the offender would
fare badly at her hands. Halfman waved her aside with a gesture of
impatience.

"Mistress Satchell," he protested, "you are a valiant woman, but a
rampant amazon."

Dame Satchell's cheeks glowed a deeper crimson, and her variable
anger raged from Clupp to Halfman.

"Call me no names," she squalled, "though you do call yourself
captain, or I'll call you the son of a--"

However Mistress Satchell intended to finish her objurgation it was
not given to the company to learn, for Halfman tripped up her speech
w