w called
Sibyll's gaze to the lattice, which looked over the balustrade of the
staircase into the vast yard. She saw several armed men, their harness
hewed and battered, quaffing ale or wine in haste, and heard one of them
say to the landlord,--

"All is lost! Sir Geoffrey Gates still holds out, but it is butcher
work. The troops of Lord Hastings gather round him as a net round the
fish!"

Hastings!--that name!--he was at hand! he was near! they would be saved!
Sibyll's heart beat loudly.

"And the captain?" asked Porpustone.

"Alive, when I last saw him; but we must be off. In another hour all
will be hurry and skurry, flight and chase." At this moment from one of
the barns there emerged, one by one, the female vultures of the battle.
The tymbesteres, who had tramped all night to the spot, had slept
off their fatigue during the day, and appeared on the scene as the
neighbouring strife waxed low, and the dead and dying began to cumber
the gory ground. Graul Skellet, tossing up her timbrel, darted to the
fugitives and grinned a ghastly grin when she heard the news,--for the
tymbesteres were all loyal to a king who loved women, and who had a wink
and a jest for every tramping wench! The troopers tarried not, however,
for further converse, but, having satisfied their thirst, hurried and
clattered from the yard. At the sight of the ominous tymbesteres Sibyll
had drawn back, without daring to close the lattice she had opened; and
the women, seating themselves on a bench, began sleeking their long hair
and smoothing their garments from the scraps of straw and litter which
betokened the nature of their resting-place.

"Ho, girls!" said the fat landlord, "ye will pay me for board and bed,
I trust, by a show of your craft. I have two right worshipful lodgers
up yonder, whose lattice looks on the yard, and whom ye may serve to
divert."

Sibyll trembled, and crept to her father's side.

"And," continued the landlord, "if they like the clash of your musicals,
it may bring ye a groat or so, to help ye on your journey. By the way,
whither wend ye, wenches?"

"To a bonny, jolly fair," answered the sinister voice of Graul,--

"Where a mighty SHOWMAN dyes
The greenery into red;
Where, presto! at the word
Lies his Fool without a head;
Where he gathers in the crowd
To the trumpet and the drum,
With a jingle and a tinkle,
Graul's merry lasses come!"

As the two closing lines w