nd to Manny. Manny spreads it on to Sir
Reginald Cobham, and he to Robert Knolles, each smiling like the Devil
over a friar."

"Which is Sir Robert Knolles?" asked Nigel with interest. "I have heard
much of him and his deeds."

"He is the tall hard-faced man in yellow silk, he with the hairless
cheeks and the split lip. He is little older than yourself, and his
father was a cobbler in Chester, yet he has already won the golden
spurs. See how he dabs his great hand in the dish and hands forth the
gobbets. He is more used to a camp-kettle than a silver plate. The big
man with the black beard is Sir Bartholomew Berghersh, whose brother is
the Abbot of Beaulieu. Haste, haste! for the boar's head is come and the
plate's to be cleaned."

The table manners of our ancestors at this period would have furnished
to the modern eye the strangest mixture of luxury and of barbarism.
Forks were still unknown, and the courtesy fingers, the index and
the middle of the left hand, took their place. To use any others was
accounted the worst of manners. A crowd of dogs lay among the rushes
growling at each other and quarreling over the gnawed bones which were
thrown to them by the feasters. A slice of coarse bread served usually
as a plate, but the King's own high table was provided with silver
platters, which were wiped by the Squire or page after each course. On
the other hand the table-linen was costly, and the courses, served with
a pomp and dignity now unknown, comprised such a variety of dishes and
such complex marvels of cookery as no modern banquet could show. Besides
all our domestic animals and every kind of game, such strange delicacies
as hedgehogs, bustards, porpoises, squirrels, bitterns and cranes lent
variety to the feast.

Each new course, heralded by a flourish of silver trumpets, was borne
in by liveried servants walking two and two, with rubicund marshals
strutting in front and behind, bearing white wands in their hands, not
only as badges of their office, but also as weapons with which to repel
any impertinent inroad upon the dishes in the journey from the kitchen
to the hall. Boar's heads, enarmed and endored with gilt tusks and
flaming mouths, were followed by wondrous pasties molded to the shape of
ships, castles and other devices with sugar seamen or soldiers who lost
their own bodies in their fruitless defense against the hungry attack.
Finally came the great nef, a silver vessel upon wheels laden with fruit
an