as the stormy outcome of it
all is now presently to be told.

CHAPTER 12

Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors,
gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before
matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles
had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was
declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and
even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself
into a fight.

One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two
trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude
bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments.
Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the
metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag.
The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at
length idly looking on.

Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name
Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red
and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs.

Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat.
"What is to do?"

The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade.
"Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his
eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection.

"Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did
he beat thee?"

"Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer
from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy
quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he,
"when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break
the blade of yesterday?"

"I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take
the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me
thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife.
Now get thee gone to thy business."

The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work.
"What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously.

"Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I
will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a
threatening gesture.

The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scur