very
gleams like the glitter of polished metal in the sun. And as he looked
the shifty wind came down out of the west again and whirled the cloud of
dust away, and there he saw a long line of men upon horses coming at an
easy canter up the highway. Just as he had made this out the line came
rattling to a stop, the distant drumming of hoofs was still, and as the
long file knotted itself into a rosette of ruddy color amid the April
green, a clear, shrill trumpet blew and blew again.

"They are coming!" shouted Robin, "they are coming!" and, turning, waved
his cap.

A shout went up along the bridge. Those down below came clambering up,
the punts came poling with a rush of foam, and a ripple ran along the
edge of Stratford town like the wind through a field of wheat. Windows
creaked and doors swung wide, and the workmen stopped in the
garden-plots to lean upon their mattocks and to look.

"They are coming!" bellowed Rafe Hickathrift, the butcher's boy,
standing far out in the street, with his red hands to his mouth for a
trumpet, "they are coming!" and at that the doors of Bridge street grew
alive with eager eyes.

At early dawn the Oxford carrier had brought the news that the players
of the Lord High Admiral were coming up to Stratford out of London from
the south, to play on May-day there; and this was what had set the town
to buzzing like a swarm. For there were in England then but three great
companies, the High Chamberlain's, the Earl of Pembroke's men, and the
stage-players of my Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of the Realm; and
the day on which they came into a Midland market-town to play was one to
mark with red and gold upon the calendar of the uneventful year.

Away by the old mill-bridge there were fishermen angling for dace and
perch; but when the shout came down from the London road they dropped
their poles and ran, through the willows and over the gravel, splashing
and thrashing among the rushes and sandy shallows, not to be last when
the players came. And old John Carter coming down the Warwick road with
a load of hay, laid on the lash until piebald Dobbin snorted in dismay
and broke into a lumbering run to reach the old stone bridge in time.

The distant horsemen now were coming on again, riding in double file.
They had flung their banners to the breeze, and on the changing wind,
with the thumping of horses' hoofs, came by snatches the sound of a
kettledrummer drawing his drumhead tight, and beating