ack."

"Villain Verjuice and Varlet Vinegar is what Kit there calls them," said
Stephen, looking up from the work he was carrying on over a pan of
glowing charcoal.

"Yea," said Smallbones, intermitting his noisy operations, "and the more
of swine be they that gorge themselves on it. I told Jack and Hob that
'twould be shame for English folk to drown themselves like French frogs
or Flemish hogs."

"Hogs!" returned Randall. "A decent Hampshire hog would scorn to be
lodged as many a knight and squire and lady too is now, pigging it in
styes and hovels and haylofts by night, and pranking it by day with the
best!"

"Sooth enough," said Smallbones. "Yea, we have had two knights and
their squires beseeching us for leave to sleep under our waggon! Not an
angel had they got among the four of them either, having all their
year's income on their backs, and more too. I trow they and their heirs
will have good cause to remember this same Field of Gold."

"And what be'st thou doing, nevvy?" asked the jester. "Thy trade seems
as brisk as though red blood were flowing instead of red wine."

"I am doing my part towards making the King into Hercules," said
Stephen, "though verily the tailor hath more part therein than we have;
but he must needs have a breastplate of scales of gold, and that by to-
morrow's morn. As Ambrose would say, `if he will be a pagan god, he
should have what's-his-name, the smith of the gods, to work for him.'"

"I heard of that freak," said the jester. "There be a dozen tailors and
all the Queen's tirewomen frizzling up a good piece of cloth of gold for
the lion's mane, covering a club with green damask with pricks, cutting
out green velvet and gummed silk for his garland! In sooth, these
graces have left me so far behind in foolery that I have not a jest left
in my pouch! So here I be, while my Lord Cardinal is shut up with
Madame d'Angouleme in the castle--the real old castle, mind you--doing
the work, leaving the kings and queens to do their own fooling."

"Have you spoken with the French King, Hal?" asked Smallbones, who had
become a great crony of his, since the anxieties of May Eve.

"So far as I may when I have no French, and he no English! He is a
comely fellow, with a blithe tongue and a merry eye, I warrant you a
chanticleer who will lose nought for lack of crowing. He'll crow louder
than ever now he hath given our Harry a fall."

"No! hath he?" and Giles, Stephen, and Smallbones,