ar Tucks, and your Hobby-horses. Silence your pestilent
minstrels, and depart peaceably to your own homes. Abandon your sinful
courses, or assuredly 'the Lord will come upon you unawares, and cut you
in sunder, and appoint your portion among unbelievers.'"

So sonorous was the voice of the Puritan, so impressive were his looks
and gestures, that his address commanded general attention. While he
continued to speak, the sports were wholly stopped. The minstrels left
off playing to listen to him, and the mummers suspended their merry
evolutions round the May-pole. The poor denounced May Queen, who on the
rejection of her nosegay had flown back to Jocelyn, now looked doubly
disconcerted at this direct attack upon her and her finery, and pouted
her pretty lips in vexation. Dick Taverner, who stood by her side,
seemed disposed to resent the affront, and shook his fist menacingly at
the Puritan. Jocelyn himself was perplexed and annoyed, for though
inclined to take part with the assemblage, the growing interest he felt
in Aveline forbade all interference with her father.

CHAPTER XVI.

Of the sign given by the Puritan to the Assemblage.

Meanwhile, a great crowd had collected beneath the window, and though no
interruption was offered to the speaker, it was easy to discern from the
angry countenances of his hearers what was the effect of the address
upon them. When he had done, Hugh Calveley folded his arms upon his
breast, and sternly regarded the assemblage.

He was well-stricken in years, as his grizzled hair and beard denoted,
but neither was his strength impaired, nor the fire of his eye dimmed.
Squarely built, with hard and somewhat massive features, strongly
stamped with austerity, he was distinguished by a soldier-like
deportment and manner, while his bronzed countenance, which bore upon it
more than one cicatrice, showed he must have been exposed to foreign
suns, and seen much service. There was great determination about the
mouth, and about the physiognomy generally, while at the same time there
was something of the wildness of fanaticism in his looks. He was habited
in a buff jerkin, with a brown, lackered, breast-plate over it,
thigh-pieces of a similar colour and similar material, and stout
leathern boots. A broad belt with a heavy sword attached to, it crossed
his breast, and round his neck was a plain falling band. You could not
regard Hugh Calveley without feeling he was a man to die a martyr in any