sixteen others to the landward
side."

"And how is it, good Aylward, that there comes so much music from the
town? I seem to hear a hundred trumpets, all calling in chorus."

"It would be strange else, seeing that all the great lords of England
and of Gascony are within the walls, and each would have his trumpeter
blow as loud as his neighbor, lest it might be thought that his dignity
had been abated. Ma foi! they make as much louster as a Scotch army,
where every man fills himself with girdle-cakes, and sits up all night
to blow upon the toodle-pipe. See all along the banks how the pages
water the horses, and there beyond the town how they gallop them over
the plain! For every horse you see a belted knight hath herbergage in
the town, for, as I learn, the men-at-arms and archers have already gone
forward to Dax."

"I trust, Aylward," said Sir Nigel, coming upon deck, "that the men are
ready for the land. Go tell them that the boats will be for them within
the hour."

The archer raised his hand in salute, and hastened forward. In the
meantime Sir Oliver had followed his brother knight, and the two paced
the poop together, Sir Nigel in his plum-colored velvet suit with flat
cap of the same, adorned in front with the Lady Loring's glove and girt
round with a curling ostrich feather. The lusty knight, on the other
hand, was clad in the very latest mode, with cote-hardie, doublet,
pourpoint, court-pie, and paltock of olive-green, picked out with
pink and jagged at the edges. A red chaperon or cap, with long hanging
cornette, sat daintily on the back of his black-curled head, while his
gold-hued shoes were twisted up _a la poulaine_, as though the toes
were shooting forth a tendril which might hope in time to entwine itself
around his massive leg.

"Once more, Sir Oliver," said Sir Nigel, looking shorewards with
sparkling eyes, "do we find ourselves at the gate of honor, the door
which hath so often led us to all that is knightly and worthy. There
flies the prince's banner, and it would be well that we haste ashore and
pay our obeisance to him. The boats already swarm from the bank."

"There is a goodly hostel near the west gate, which is famed for the
stewing of spiced pullets," remarked Sir Oliver. "We might take the edge
of our hunger off ere we seek the prince, for though his tables are
gay with damask and silver he is no trencherman himself, and hath no
sympathy for those who are his betters."

"His betters!"