ound himself in a part of the holiday
scene appropriated to diversions less manly, but no less characteristic
of the period than those of the staff and arrow. Beneath an awning,
under which an itinerant landlord dispensed cakes and ale, the humorous
Bourdour (the most vulgar degree of minstrel, or rather tale-teller)
collected his clownish audience; while seated by themselves--apart, but
within hearing--two harpers, in the king's livery, consoled each other
for the popularity of their ribald rival, by wise reflections on the
base nature of common folk. Farther on, Marmaduke started to behold
what seemed to him the heads of giants at least six yards high; but on
a nearer approach these formidable apparitions resolved themselves to
a company of dancers upon stilts. There, one joculator exhibited the
antics of his well-tutored ape; there, another eclipsed the attractions
of the baboon by a marvellous horse that beat a tabor with his forefeet;
there, the more sombre Tregetour, before a table raised upon a lofty
stage, promised to cut off and refix the head of a sad-faced little boy,
who in the mean time was preparing his mortal frame for the operation by
apparently larding himself with sharp knives and bodkins. Each of these
wonder-dealers found his separate group of admirers, and great was the
delight and loud the laughter in the pastime-ground of old Cockaigne.

While Marmaduke, bewildered by this various bustle, stared around him,
his eye was caught by a young maiden, in evident distress, struggling in
vain to extricate herself from a troop of timbrel-girls, or tymbesteres
(as they were popularly called), who surrounded her with mocking
gestures, striking their instruments to drown her remonstrances, and
dancing about her in a ring at every effort towards escape. The girl
was modestly attired as one of the humbler ranks, and her wimple in
much concealed her countenance; but there was, despite her strange
and undignified situation and evident alarm, a sort of quiet, earnest
self-possession,--an effort to hide her terror, and to appeal to the
better and more womanly feelings of her persecutors. In the intervals of
silence from the clamour, her voice, though low, clear, well-tuned, and
impressive, forcibly arrested the attention of young Nevile; for at that
day, even more than this (sufficiently apparent as it now is), there was
a marked distinction in the intonation, the accent, the modulation of
voice, between the better b