led.

Cuthbert gazed with delight at the varied colours, the gay dresses, the
martial knights, and the air of discipline and order which reigned
everywhere.

This was indeed war in its most picturesque form, a form which, as far as
beauty is concerned, has been altogether altered, and indeed destroyed,
by modern arms.

In those days individual prowess and bravery went for everything. A
handful of armoured knights were a match for thousands of footmen, and
battles were decided as much by the prowess and bravery of the leader and
his immediate following as by that of the great mass of the army.

The earl had the day before sent on a messenger to state that he was
coming, and as the party entered the camp they were met by a squire of
the camp-marshal, who conducted them to the position allotted to them.

The earl's tent was soon erected, with four or five grouped around it for
his knights, one being set aside for his squires and pages.

When this was done, Cuthbert strolled away to look at the varied sights
of the camp. A military officer in these days would be scandalized at the
scenes which were going on, but the strict, hard military discipline of
modern times was then absolutely unknown.

A camp was a moving town, and to it flocked the country people with their
goods; smiths and armourers erected their forges; minstrels and
troubadours flocked in to sing of former battles, and to raise the
spirits of the soldiers by merry lays of love and war; simple countrymen
and women came in to bring their presents of fowls or cakes to their
friends in camp; knights rode to and fro on their gaily caparisoned
horses through the crowd; the newly raised levies, in many cases composed
of woodmen and peasants who had not in the course of their lives wandered
a league from their birthplaces, gaped in unaffected wonder at the sights
around them; while last, but by no means least, the maidens and good
wives of the neighbourhood, fond then as now of brave men and gay
dresses, thronged the streets of the camp, and joined in, and were the
cause of, merry laughter and jest.

Here and there, a little apart from the main stream of traffic, the
minstrels would take up their position, and playing a gay air, the
soldier lads and lasses would fall to and foot it merrily to the strains.
Sometimes there would be a break in the gaiety, and loud shouts, and
perhaps fierce oaths, would rise. Then the maidens would fly like
startled fawns, and me