an injunction which Sir Ralph and his squire showed remarkable alacrity
in obeying. Old Sir Guy of Gamwell gave Sir Ralph a very cordial welcome,
and entertained him during supper with several of his best stories, enforced
with an occasional slap on the back, and pointed with a peg in the ribs;
a species of vivacious eloquence in which the; old gentleman excelled,
and which is supposed by many of that pleasant variety of the human spectes,
known by the name of choice fellows and comical dogs, to be the genuine
tangible shape of the cream of a good joke.




CHAPTER VI

What! shall we have incision? shall we embrew? Henry IV.


Old Sir Guy of Gamwell, and young William Gamwell, and fair
Alice Gamwell, and Sir Ralph Montfaucon and his squire,
rode together the next morning to the scene of the feast.
They arrived on a village green, surrounded with cottages peeping
from among the trees by which the green was completely encircled.
The whole circle was hung round with one continuous garland
of flowers, depending in irregular festoons from the branches.
In the centre of the green was a May-pole hidden in boughs
and garlands; and a multitude of round-faced bumpkins and
cherry-checked lasses were dancing around it, to the quadruple
melody of Scrapesqueak, Whistlerap, Trumtwang, and Muggledrone:
harmony we must not call it; for, though they had agreed to a partnership
in point of tune, each, like a true painstaking man, seemed determined