one likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the
knowledge of Joe's sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk
scallops at the bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the
ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of
coloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face, were
mostly of that material. Joe's sweetheart straight-way placed brilliant
silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a little
further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim's, not to be
outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.

The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian
army, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the
Turkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George
himself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The guisers
themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of persons, could
not afford to offend those by whose assistance they so largely profited,
and the innovations were allowed to stand.

There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity. The
Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact--his darker habiliments,
peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his arm, could never
be mistaken. And the same might be said of the conventional figure of
Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an older man, who accompanied
the band as general protector in long night journeys from parish to
parish, and was bearer of the purse.

Seven o'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short
time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuelhouse. To dissipate in some
trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life she
went to the "linhay" or lean-to shed, which formed the root-store of