ou limb, I'll griddle you!" Mistress Satchell gasped, panting in
the embracing arms. Halfman played the peace-maker with a sour smile.

"There, there, goody," he expostulated; "youth will have its yelp."

He turned with something of a yawn to Thoroughgood.

"Why a devil did you press gossip cook into the service?"

Thoroughgood shook his head protestingly.

"Nay, the virago volunteered," he explained, with a look that seemed
to supplement speech in the suggestion that it were best to let
Mistress Satchell have her own way. This was evidently Mistress
Satchell's own view of the matter.

"Truly," she exclaimed, "if my lady, being no more than a woman, is
man enough to garrison her house against the Roundheads, she cannot
deny me, that am no less than a woman, the right to handle a pike."

Halfman, eying the dame's assertive rotundities, thought that he
would be indeed a quarrelsome fellow who should deny her evident
femininity.

"You are a lovely logician," he approved. "Enough."

Then resuming his sententious tone of military command, he took up
the task where he had left it off.

"Trail your pikes."

The order was this time obeyed by the company with something
approaching resemblance to the action of Thoroughgood, and Halfman
went on.

"Cheek your pikes."

Out of the confused cluttering of weapons which ensued, Timothy
Garlinge emerged tremulous.

"Please, sir," he gurgled, "I've forgotten how to cheek my pike."

Halfman mastered exasperation bravely, as, taking a pike from the
hands of Thoroughgood, he strove to illuminate rusticity.

"Use your pike thus, noddy," he lessoned, good-naturedly, wielding
the weapon with the skill of a practised pikeman. But the
illustration was as much lost upon Garlinge as the original command,
and in his attempt to imitate it he whirled his arm so recklessly
that his companions scattered in dismay, and Halfman himself was
fain to move a step or two backward to avoid the yokel's meaningless
sweeps.

"Have a care," he cried. "If you work so wild you will damage your
company."

Mrs. Satchell, taking her post in the now restored line, shook her
red fist at the delinquent.

"He had best not damage me," she thundered, "or I'll damage him to
some purpose."

"Silence in the ranks!" Halfman commanded, sharply. "Charge your
pikes," he ordered.

This order was obeyed indifferently and tamely enough by all save the
egregious Mrs. Satchell, who delivered so lusty a thrust