f the Flat-cap. I have already taken
my degrees, and no longer wear blue. I am headman to my master, and my
master will be sheriff of London."

"It is a pity," said the Nevile, shaking his head; "you were ever a
tall, brave lad, and would have made a very pretty soldier."

"Thank you, Master Marmaduke, but I leave cut and thrust to the gentles.
I have seen eno' of the life of a retainer. He goes out on foot with his
shield and his sword, or his bow and his quiver, while Sir Knight sits
on horseback, armed from the crown to the toe, and the arrow slants off
from rider and horse, as a stone from a tree. If the retainer is not
sliced and carved into mincemeat, he comes home to a heap of ashes,
and a handful of acres, harried and rivelled into a common; Sir Knight
thanks him for his valour, but he does not build up his house; Sir
Knight gets a grant from the king, or an heiress for his son, and Hob
Yeoman turns gisarme and bill into ploughshares. Tut, tut, there's no
liberty, no safety, no getting on, for a man who has no right to the
gold spurs, but in the guild of his fellows; and London is the place for
a born Saxon like Nicholas Alwyn."

As the young aspirant thus uttered the sentiments, which though others
might not so plainly avow and shrewdly enforce them, tended towards that
slow revolution, which, under all the stormy events that the superficial
record we call HISTORY alone deigns to enumerate, was working that great
change in the thoughts and habits of the people,--that impulsion of the
provincial citywards, that gradual formation of a class between knight
and vassal,--which became first constitutionally visible and distinct
in the reign of Henry VII., Marmaduke Nevile, inly half-regretting and
half-despising the reasonings of his foster-brother, was playing with
his dagger, and glancing at his silver arrow.

"Yet you could still have eno' of the tall yeoman and the stout retainer
about you to try for this bauble, and to break half a dozen thick heads
with your quarter-staff!"

"True," said Nicholas; "you must recollect we are only, as yet, between
the skin and the selle,--half-trader, half-retainer. The old leaven will
out,--'Eith to learn the cat to the kirn,' as they say in the North. But
that's not all; a man, to get on, must win respect from those who are
to jostle him hereafter, and it's good policy to show those roystering
youngsters that Nick Alwyn, stiff and steady though he be, has the old
English m