e were matches at Clarendon,"
muttered Giles, who had learnt at least that it was of no use to
complain of Smallbones' plain speaking.

"If folks cocker malapert lads at Sarum we know better here," was the
answer.

"I shall ask the master, my kinsman," returned the youth.

But he got little by his move. Master Headley told him, not unkindly,
for he had some pity for the spoilt lad, that not the Lord Mayor himself
would take his own son with him while yet an apprentice. Tibble
Steelman would indeed go to one of the attendants' tents at the further
end of the lists, where repairs to armour and weapons might be needed,
and would take an assistant or two, but who they might be must depend on
his own choice, and if Giles had any desire to go, he had better don his
working dress.

In fact, Tibble meant to take Edmund Burgess and one workman for use,
and one of the new apprentices for pleasure, letting them change in the
middle of the day. The swagger of Giles actually forfeited for him the
first turn, which--though he was no favourite with the men--would have
been granted to his elder years and his relationship to the master; but
on his overbearing demand to enter the boat which was to carry down a
little anvil and charcoal furnace, with a few tools, rivets, nails, and
horse-shoes, Tibble coolly returned that he needed no such gay birds;
but if Giles chose to be ready in his leathern coat when Stephen
Birkenholt came home at mid-day, mayhap he might change with him.

Stephen went joyously in the plainest of attire, though Tibble in fur
cap, grimy jerkin, and leathern apron was no elegant steersman; and
Edmund, who was at the age of youthful foppery, shrugged his shoulders a
little, and disguised the garments of the smithy with his best flat cap
and newest mantle.

They kept in the wake of the handsome barge which Master Headley shared
with his friend and brother alderman, Master Hope the draper, whose
young wife, in a beautiful black velvet hood and shining blue satin
kirtle, was evidently petting Dennet to her heart's content, though the
little damsel never lost an opportunity of nodding to her friends in the
plainer barge in the rear.

The Tudor tilting-matches cost no lives, and seldom broke bones. They
were chiefly opportunities for the display of brilliant enamelled and
gilt armour, at the very acme of cumbrous magnificence; and of equally
gorgeous embroidery spread out over the vast expanse provided by
elep