the tunic of which was so outgrown that it did not fasten at the
neck and at the waist. His face was swollen and coarse, and his
watery protruding eyes spoke of a life which never wandered very
far from the wine-pot. A gilt harp, blotched with many stains
and with two of its strings missing, was tucked under one of his
arms, while with the other he scooped greedily at his platter.
Next to him sat two other men of about the same age, one with a
trimming of fur to his coat, which gave him a dignity which was
evidently dearer to him than his comfort, for he still drew it
round him in spite of the hot glare of the faggots. The other,
clad in a dirty russet suit with a long sweeping doublet, had a
cunning, foxy face with keen, twinkling eyes and a peaky beard.
Next to him sat Hordle John, and beside him three other rough
unkempt fellows with tangled beards and matted hair--free laborers
from the adjoining farms, where small patches of freehold
property had been suffered to remain scattered about in the heart
of the royal demesne. The company was completed by a peasant in
a rude dress of undyed sheepskin, with the old-fashioned
galligaskins about his legs, and a gayly dressed young man with
striped cloak jagged at the edges and parti-colored hosen, who
looked about him with high disdain upon his face, and held a blue
smelling-flask to his nose with one hand, while he brandished a
busy spoon with the other. In the corner a very fat man was
lying all a-sprawl upon a truss, snoring stertorously, and
evidently in the last stage of drunkenness.

"That is Wat the limner," quoth the landlady, sitting down beside
Alleyne, and pointing with the ladle to the sleeping man. "That
is he who paints the signs and the tokens. Alack and alas that
ever I should have been fool enough to trust him! Now, young man,