n! to your pikes! Dress to the right!" thundered the captain,
with a sufficient pause between each sentence. "The York lozels have
starved on stale beer,--shall they beat huffcap and Lancaster? Frisk
and fresh-up with the Antelope banner [The antelope was one of the
Lancastrian badges. The special cognizance of Henry VI. was two feathers
in saltire.], and long live Henry the Sixth!"

The sound of the shout that answered this harangue shook the thin walls
of the chamber in which the prisoners were confined, and they heard
with joy the departing tramp of the soldiers. In a short time, Master
Porpustone himself, a corpulent, burly fellow, with a face by no
means unprepossessing, mounted to the chamber, accompanied by a comely
housekeeper, linked to him, as scandal said, by ties less irksome than
Hymen's, and both bearing ample provisions, with rich pigment and lucid
clary [clary was wine clarified], which they spread with great formality
on an oak table before their involuntary guest.

"Eat, your worship, eat!" cried mine host, heartily. "Eat,
lady-bird,--nothing like eating to kill time and banish care. Fortune
of war, Sir John,--fortune of war, never be daunted! Up to-day, down
to-morrow. Come what may--York or Lancaster--still a rich man always
falls on his legs. Five hundred or so to the captain; a noble or two,
out of pure generosity, to Ned Porpustone (I scorn extortion), and you
and the fair young dame may breakfast at home to-morrow, unless the
captain or his favourite lieutenant is taken prisoner; and then, you
see, they will buy off their necks by letting you out of the bag. Eat, I
say,--eat!"

"Verily," said Adam, seating himself solemnly, and preparing to obey, "I
confess I'm a hungered, and the pasty hath a savoury odour; but I pray
thee to tell me why I am called Sir John. Adam is my baptismal name."

"Ha! ha! good--very good, your honour--to be sure, and your father's
name before you. We are all sons of Adam, and every son, I trow, has a
just right and a lawful to his father's name."

With that, followed by the housekeeper, the honest landlord, chuckling
heartily, rolled his goodly bulk from the chamber, which he carefully
locked.

"Comprehendest thou yet, Sibyll?"

"Yes, dear sir and father, they mistake us for fugitives of mark and
importance; and when they discover their error, no doubt we shall go
free. Courage, dear father!"

"Me seemeth," quoth Adam, almost merrily, as the good man filled his