babe, had been lifted from her
dying mother's side in the dark stifling hold of the vessel in the Bay
of Biscay. And in sheer surprise and sense of being soothed she ceased
her cries, listened to the tender whispers and persuasions about holy
men who would care for her father, and his wishes that she should be a
good maid--till at last she yielded, let her hands be loosed, allowed
Perronel to lift the venerable head from her knee, and close the eyes--
then to gather her in her arms, and lead her to the door, taking her,
under Ambrose's guidance, into Lucas's abode, which was as utterly and
mournfully dismantled as their own, but where Perronel, accustomed in
her wandering days to all sorts of contrivances, managed to bind up the
streaming hair, and, by the help of her own cloak, to bring the poor
girl into a state in which she could be led through the streets.

The Dean meantime had bidden Lucas to take shelter at his own house, and
the old Dutchman had given a sort of doubtful acceptance.

Ambrose, meanwhile, half distracted about his brother, craved counsel of
the jester where to seek him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

ILL MAY DAY.

"With two and two together tied,
Through Temple Bar and Strand they go,
To Westminster, there to be tried,
Ropes about their necks also."
_Ill May Day_.

And where was Stephen? Crouching, wretched with hunger, cold,
weariness, blows, and what was far worse, sense of humiliation and
disgrace, and tenor for the future, in a corner of the yard of Newgate--
whither the whole set of lads, surprised in Warwick Inner Court by the
law students of the Inns of Court, had been driven like so many cattle,
at the sword's point, with no attention or perception that he and Giles
had been struggling against the spoilers.

Yet this fact made them all the more forlorn. The others, some forty in
number, their companions in misfortune, included most of the Barbican
prentices, who were of the Eagle faction, special enemies alike to
Abenali and to the Dragon, and these held aloof from Headley and
Birkenholt, nay, reviled them for the attack which they declared had
caused the general capture.

The two lads of the Dragon had, in no measured terms, denounced the
cruelty to the poor old inoffensive man, and were denounced in their
turn as friends of the sorcerer. But all were too much exhausted by the
night's work to have spirit for more than a snarling encounter of words,
and the only effect