"Up, men! to your pikes! Dress to the right!" thundered the captain,
with a sufficient pause between each sentence. "The York lozels have
starved on stale beer,--shall they beat huffcap and Lancaster? Frisk
and fresh-up with the Antelope banner [The antelope was one of the
Lancastrian badges. The special cognizance of Henry VI. was two
feathers in saltire.], and long live Henry the Sixth!"

The sound of the shout that answered this harangue shook the thin
walls of the chamber in which the prisoners were confined, and they
heard with joy the departing tramp of the soldiers. In a short time,
Master Porpustone himself, a corpulent, burly fellow, with a face by
no means unprepossessing, mounted to the chamber, accompanied by a
comely housekeeper, linked to him, as scandal said, by ties less
irksome than Hymen's, and both bearing ample provisions, with rich
pigment and lucid clary [clary was wine clarified], which they spread
with great formality on an oak table before their involuntary guest.

"Eat, your worship, eat!" cried mine host, heartily. "Eat, lady-
bird,--nothing like eating to kill time and banish care. Fortune of
war, Sir John,--fortune of war, never be daunted! Up to-day, down to-
morrow. Come what may--York or Lancaster--still a rich man always
falls on his legs. Five hundred or so to the captain; a noble or two,
out of pure generosity, to Ned Porpustone (I scorn extortion), and you
and the fair young dame may breakfast at home to-morrow, unless the
captain or his favourite lieutenant is taken prisoner; and then, you
see, they will buy off their necks by letting you out of the bag.
Eat, I say,--eat!"

"Verily," said Adam, seating himself solemnly, and preparing to obey,
"I confess I'm a hungered, and the pasty hath a savoury odour; but I