.

"What mean ye by this insolence, you beggars' brats picked up on the
heath?"

"Better born than thou, braggart and coward that thou art!" broke forth
Stephen, while Master Headley exclaimed, "How now, lads? No brawling
here!"

Three voices spoke at once.

"They were insolent."

"He reviled our birth."

"Father! they did but laugh when I told cousin Giles that he took to his
heels, and he must needs call them beggars' brats picked up on the
heath."

"Ha! ha! wench, thou art woman enough already to set them together by
the ears," said her father, laughing. "See here, Giles Headley, none
who bears my name shall insult a stranger on my hearth."

Stephen however had stepped forth holding out his small stock of coin,
and saying, "Sir, receive for our charges, and let us go to the tavern
we passed anon."

"How now, boy! Said I not ye were my guests?"

"Yea, sir, and thanks; but we can give no cause for being called beggars
nor beggars' brats."

"What beggary is there in being guests, my young gentlemen?" said the
master of the house. "If any one were picked up on the heath, it was I.
We owned you for gentlemen of blood and coat armour, and thy brother
there can tell thee that ye have no right to put an affront on me, your
host, because a rude prentice from a country town hath not learnt to
rule his tongue."

Giles scowled, but the armourer spoke with an authority that imposed on
all, and Stephen submitted, while Ambrose spoke a few words of thanks,
after which the two brothers were conducted by an external stair and
gallery to a guest-chamber, in which to prepare for supper.

The room was small, but luxuriously filled beyond all ideas of the young
foresters, for it was hung with tapestry, representing the history of
Joseph; the bed was curtained, there was a carved chest for clothes, a
table and a ewer and basin of bright brass with the armourer's mark upon
it, a twist in which the letter H and the dragon's tongue and tail were
ingeniously blended. The City was far in advance of the country in all
the arts of life, and only the more magnificent castles and abbeys,
which the boys had never seen, possessed the amount of comforts to be
found in the dwellings of the superior class of Londoners. Stephen was
inclined to look with contempt upon the effeminacy of a churl merchant.

"No churl," returned Ambrose, "if manners makyth man, as we saw at
Winchester."

"Then what do they make of that cowardly clo