lance and colors of its owner, and side by side in the
center of the camp stood the royal pavilions of Philip of France and
Richard of England, round which could be seen the gonfalons of all the
nobles of Western Europe.

Nothing could be gayer than the aspect of this camp as the party rode
into it. They were rather late, and the great body of the host were
already assembled.

Cuthbert gazed with delight at the varied colors, 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 armored 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 armorers 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 gayly 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 neighborhood, 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 jes