h their wives and their daughters,
had meanwhile been assembling on the balconies and at the windows which
overlooked the square, whence they might have a view of the pageant. The
grave, square-bearded, broadclothed burghers, and their portly dames in
velvet and three-piled taffeta, looked down from every post of vantage,
while here and there a pretty, timid face peeping out from a Puritan
coif made good the old claim, that Taunton excelled in beautiful women
as well as in gallant men. The side-walks were crowded with the commoner
folk--old white-bearded wool-workers, stern-faced matrons, country
lasses with their shawls over their heads, and swarms of children, who
cried out with their treble voices for King Monmouth and the Protestant
succession.

'By my faith!' said Sir Gervas, reining back his steed until he was
abreast of me, 'our square-toed friends need not be in such post-haste
to get to heaven when they have so many angels among them on earth.
Gad's wounds, are they not beautiful? Never a patch or a diamond amongst
them, and yet what would not our faded belles of the Mall or the Piazza
give for their innocence and freshness?'

'Nay, for Heaven's sake do not smile and bow at them,' said I. 'These
courtesies may pass in London, but they may be misunderstood among
simple Somerset maidens and their hot-headed, hard-handed kinsfolk.'

I had hardly spoken before the folding-doors of the town-hall were
thrown open, and a procession of the city fathers emerged into the
market-place. Two trumpeters in parti-coloured jerkins preceded them,
who blew a flourish upon their instruments as they advanced. Behind came
the aldermen and councilmen, grave and reverend elders, clad in their
sweeping gowns of black silk, trimmed and tippeted with costly furs.
In rear of these walked a pursy little red-faced man, the town clerk,
bearing a staff of office in his hand, while the line of dignitaries
was closed by the tall and stately figure of Stephen Timewell, Mayor of
Taunton.

There was much in this magistrate's appearance to attract attention, for
all the characteristics of the Puritan party to which he belonged were
embodied and exaggerated in his person. Of great height he was and very
thin, with a long-drawn, heavy eyelidded expression, which spoke of
fasts and vigils. The bent shoulders and the head sunk upon the breast
proclaimed the advances of age, but his bright steel-grey eyes and the
animation of his eager face showed