we find they spoke the truth, for it is likely to end in a divorce."

"Not so loud, mine host!" cried the foremost attendant; "here comes our
young master, the Earl of Surrey."

"Well, I care not," replied the host bluffly. "I've spoken no treason. I
love my king; and if he wishes to have a divorce, I hope his holiness the
Pope will grant him one, that's all."

As he said this, a loud noise was heard within the hostel, and a man
was suddenly and so forcibly driven forth, that he almost knocked down
Bryan Bowntance, who was rushing in to see what was the matter. The
person thus ejected, who was a powerfully-built young man, in a
leathern doublet, with his muscular arms bared to the shoulder, turned
his rage upon the host, and seized him by the throat with a grip that
threatened him with strangulation. Indeed, but for the intervention of
the earl's attendants, who rushed to his assistance, such might have
been his fate. As soon as he was liberated, Bryan cried in a voice of
mingled rage and surprise to his assailant, "Why, what's the matter,
Mark Fytton?--are you gone mad, or do you mistake me for a sheep or a
bullock, that you attack me in this fashion? My strong ale must have
got into your addle pate with a vengeance.

"The knave has been speaking treason of the king's highness," said the
tall man, whose doublet and hose of the finest green cloth, as well as
the how and quiverful of arrows at his back, proclaimed him an archer--"
and therefore we turned him out!"

"And you did well, Captain Barlow," cried the host.