der stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the
nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after
day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships
loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted
off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and
lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to
the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet,
gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the
season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the
waters.

In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of
leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or
profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet
fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from
Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and
Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West,
Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout
Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover,
Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John
Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of
picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of
all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and
the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest
spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the
New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country
which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers
from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to
take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses.

And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws
of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a
square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have
supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his
land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him
the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and
war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the
money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had
broug