osticate little good for either.
Master Vallance was a patriot after his fashion; he wished his
country well, but he wished himself better, and the brawling of
certain persons of importance might, apart from its direct influence
upon the fortunes of the kingdom, indirectly result in Master
Vallance's downfall. For the persons of importance whose bickerings
so grievously interested Master Vallance were on the one side his
most sacred and gracious Majesty King Charles I., and on the other a
number of units as to whose powers or purposes Master Vallance
entertained only the most shadowy notions, but who were disagreeably
familiar to him in a term of mystery as the Parliament.

In the mellow October evening Master Vallance sat at his inn door and
dandled troubled thoughts. The year of his lord 1642 having begun
badly, threatened to end worse. Master Vallance chewed the cud of
country-side gossip. He reminded himself that not so very far away
the King had set up his standard at Nottingham and summoned all loyal
souls to his banner; that not so very far away in Cambridge, a fussy
gentleman, a Mr. Cromwell, member for that place, had officiously
pushed the interests of the Parliament by raising troops of
volunteers and laying violent hands upon the University plate. Master
Vallance tickled his chin and tried to count miles and to weigh
probabilities. Royalty was near, but Parliament seemed nearer; which
would be the first of the fighting forces to spread a strong hand
over Harby?

Master Vallance emptied his mug and, turning his head, looked up the
village street, and over the village street to the rising ground
beyond and the gray house that crowned it. He sighed as he surveyed
the familiar walls of Harby House, because of one unfamiliar object.
Over the ancient walls, straight from the ancient roof, sprang a
flag-staff, and from that flag-staff floated a banner which Master
Vallance knew well enough to be the royal standard of England's King.
Master Vallance also knew, for he had been told this by Master
Marfleet, the school-master, that the Lady of Harby had no right to
fly the standard, seeing that the presence of that standard implied
the bodily presence of the King. But he also knew, still on Master
Marfleet's authority, that the Lady of Harby had flung that standard
to the winds in no ignorance nor defiance of courtly custom. He knew
that the high-spirited, beautiful girl had been the first in all the
country-side to