which were beaten flat, next moment, in
hammering the loud drinking-chorus on the wall; while the clink of the
armorer still went on, repairing the old head-pieces and breastplates
which had hung untouched since the Wars of the Roses; and in the
doorway the wild Welsh recruits crouched with their scythes and their
cudgels, and muttered in their uncouth dialect, now a prayer to God; and
now a curse for their enemy.

But to-day the inner hall is empty, the stag-hounds leap in the doorway,
the chaplain prays, the maidens cluster in the windows, beneath the soft
beauty of the June afternoon. The streets of Oxford resound with many
hoofs; armed troopers are gathering beside chapel and quadrangle,
gateway and tower; the trumpeter waves his gold and crimson trappings,
and blows, "To the Standard,"--for the great flag is borne to the
front, and Rupert and his men are mustering for a night of danger
beneath that banner of "Tender and True."

With beat of drum, with clatter of hoof, and rattle of spur and
scabbard, tramping across old Magdalen Bridge, cantering down the
hill-sides, crashing through the beech-woods, echoing through the chalky
hollows, ride leisurely the gay Cavaliers. Some in new scarfs and
feathers, worthy of the "show-troop,"--others with torn laces, broken
helmets, and guilty red smears on their buff doublets;--some eager for
their first skirmish,--others weak and silent, still bandaged from the
last one;--discharging now a rattle of contemptuous shot at some closed
Puritan house, grim and stern as its master,--firing anon as noisy a
salute, as they pass some mansion where a high-born beauty dwells,--on
they ride. Leaving the towers of Oxford behind them, keeping the ancient
Roman highway, passing by the low, strong, many-gabled farmhouses, with
rustic beauties smiling at the windows and wiser fathers scowling at
the doors,--on they ride. To the Royalists, these troopers are "Prince
Robert and the hope of the nation";--to the Puritans, they are only
"Prince Robber and his company of rake-shames."

Riding great Flanders horses, a flagon swung on one side of the large
padded saddle, and a haversack on the other,--booted to the thigh,
and girded with the leathern bandoleer, supporting cartridge-box and
basket-hilted sword, they are a picturesque and a motley troop. Some
wear the embroidered buffcoat over the coat of mail, others beneath
it,--neither having yet learned that the buffcoat alone is sabre-proof
and