of fear or of wonder as the strange light waxed and waned.

'It is half after ten by St. Mary's clock,' said Saxon, as we rode up to
the regiment. 'Have we nothing to give the men?'

'There is a hogshead of Zoyland cider in the yard of yonder inn,' said
Sir Gervas. 'Here, Dawson, do you take those gold sleeve links and give
them to mine host in exchange. Broach the barrel, and let each man have
his horn full. Sink me, if they shall fight with nought but cold water
in them.'

'They will feel the need of it ere morning,' said Saxon, as a score
of pikemen hastened off to the inn. 'The marsh air is chilling to the
blood.'

'I feel cold already, and Covenant is stamping with it,' said I. 'Might
we not, if we have time upon our hands, canter our horses down the
line?'

'Of a surety,' Saxon answered gladly, 'we could not do better;' so
shaking our bridles we rode off, our horses' hoofs striking fire from
the flint-paved streets as we passed.

Behind the horse, in a long line which stretched from the Eastover gate,
across the bridge, along the High Street, up the Cornhill, and so past
the church to the Pig Cross, stood our foot, silent and grim, save when
some woman's voice from the windows called forth a deep, short answer
from the ranks. The fitful light gleamed on scythes-blade or gun-barrel,
and showed up the lines of rugged, hard set faces, some of mere children
with never a hair upon their cheeks, others of old men whose grey beards
swept down to their cross-belts, but all bearing the same stamp of a
dogged courage and a fierce self-contained resolution. Here were still
the fisher folk of the south. Here, too, were the fierce men from the
Mendips, the wild hunters from Porlock Quay and Minehead, the poachers
of Exmoor, the shaggy marshmen of Axbridge, the mountain men from the
Quantocks, the serge and wool-workers of Devonshire, the graziers of
Bampton, the red-coats from the Militia, the stout burghers of Taunton,
and then, as the very bone and sinew of all, the brave smockfrocked
peasants of the plains, who had turned up their jackets to the elbow,
and exposed their brown and corded arms, as was their wont when good
work had to be done. As I speak to you, dear children, fifty years
rolls by like a mist in the morning, and I am riding once more down
the winding street, and see again the serried ranks of my gallant
companions. Brave hearts! They showed to all time how little training it
takes to turn an Englishman