t the same age, one with a trimming of fur
to his coat, which gave him a dignity which was evidently dearer to him
than his comfort, for he still drew it round him in spite of the hot
glare of the faggots. The other, clad in a dirty russet suit with a long
sweeping doublet, had a cunning, foxy face with keen, twinkling eyes and
a peaky beard. Next to him sat Hordle John, and beside him three other
rough unkempt fellows with tangled beards and matted hair--free laborers
from the adjoining farms, where small patches of freehold property
had been suffered to remain scattered about in the heart of the royal
demesne. The company was completed by a peasant in a rude dress of
undyed sheepskin, with the old-fashioned galligaskins about his legs,
and a gayly dressed young man with striped cloak jagged at the edges
and parti-colored hosen, who looked about him with high disdain upon his
face, and held a blue smelling-flask to his nose with one hand, while he
brandished a busy spoon with the other. In the corner a very fat man was
lying all a-sprawl upon a truss, snoring stertorously, and evidently in
the last stage of drunkenness.

"That is Wat the limner," quoth the landlady, sitting down beside
Alleyne, and pointing with the ladle to the sleeping man. "That is he
who paints the signs and the tokens. Alack and alas that ever I should
have been fool enough to trust him! Now, young man, what manner of a
bird would you suppose a pied merlin to be--that being the proper sign
of my hostel?"

"Why," said Alleyne, "a merlin is a bird of the same form as an eagle or
a falcon. I can well remember that learned brother Bartholomew, who is
deep in all the secrets of nature, pointed one out to me as we walked
together near Vinney Ridge."

"A falcon or an eagle, quotha? And pied, that is of two several colors.
So any man would say except this barrel of lies. He came to me, look
you, saying that if I would furnish him with a gallon of ale, wherewith
to strengthen himself as he worked, and also the pigments and a board,
he would paint for me a noble pied merlin which I might hang along with
the blazonry over my door. I, poor simple fool, gave him the ale and all
that he craved, leaving him alone too, because he said that a man's mind
must be left untroubled when he had great work to do. When I came back
the gallon jar was empty, and he lay as you see him, with the board in
front of him with this sorry device." She raised up a panel which was