flood.

Nones ended, Father Shoveller, with many a halt for greeting or for
gossip, took the lads up the hill towards the wide fortified space
where the old Castle and royal Hall of Henry of Winchester looked
down on the city, and after some friendly passages with the warder
at the gate, Father Shoveller explained that he was in quest of some
one recently come from court, of whom the striplings in his company
could make inquiry concerning a kinsman in the household of my Lord
Archbishop of York. The warder scratched his head, and bethinking
himself that Eastcheap Jockey was the reverend. Father's man,
summoned a horse-boy to call that worthy.

"Where was he?"

"Sitting over his pottle in the Hall," was the reply, and the monk,
with a laugh savouring little of asceticism, said he would seek him
there, and accordingly crossed the court to the noble Hall, with its
lofty dark marble columns, and the Round Table of King Arthur
suspended at the upper end. The governor of the Castle had risen
from his meal long ago, but the garrison in the piping times of
peace would make their ration of ale last as far into the afternoon
as their commanders would suffer. And half a dozen men still sat
there, one or two snoring, two playing at dice on a clear corner of
the board, and another, a smart well-dressed fellow in a bright
scarlet jerkin, laying down the law to a country bumpkin, who looked
somewhat dazed. The first of these was, as it appeared, Eastcheap
Jockey, and there was something both of the readiness and the
impudence of the Londoner in his manner, when he turned to answer
the question. He knew many in my Lord of York's house--as many as a