ing youth had not made a secret of the day. The day once known, the little arrangement contemplated by Burley could easily be

carried out.

It was on a Wednesday that Ralph had perambulated Stourbridge Fair, and he had to restrain his impatience for three days. A good deal of the time he spent in the fair, no longer with the vehement intentness of his first search, but quietly passing here and there on the chance of encountering under some disguise the mysterious champion of the commons.

Meantime another pair of eyes was on the watch for the same man-steady, bovine, slow-moving eyes which had an acuter power of construction behind them than the world in general supposed. Master Docket, Town Clerk of Sudbury and Reeve of St. Gregory's College, had come to the fair with an interest in finding out something about Simon d'Ypres.

Docket, it may be remembered, had confidential relations with Sir Richard Rainham. He it was who had sent word in advance of the passage of the merchant's party from Sudbury to Cambridge by Sturmere, and thus had enabled the knight to intercept them. The rumour of the events that followed had reached Docket at Sudbury, and he had ridden across to Castle Hedingham to see the combat, and had afterwards sought an interview with Rainham, from whom he learnt more than he knew before about the character of the pretended merchant. It was agreed between them that Docket should follow him to Stourbridge. A discovery of his plots might prove to their mutual advantage. The knight thought he might recover his lost favour at court by helping to expose them.

It was not so very strange that Ralph had not met Docket in his rambles through the fair. Active locomotion did not suit Docket's habits. He confined his espionage within a limited field. Two close friends had accompanied him to the fair. Harry Hurst, the landlord of the White Hart, like every other important innkeeper of enterprise within thirty miles of Cambridge, was there with what would now be called a refreshment tent. Sir Roger Chowley, the Canon, had also come, to make purchases for the college. Docket spent most of his time in the tent boozing with the Canon. Every now and then he sallied out to keep his intelligent eye on the merchant's booth.

Like Ralph, Docket had soon discovered the absence of Simon d'Ypres. But unlike Ralph he did not thereupon proceed to search the Fair. "Everything comes to him who

Docket's intelli

To see, and also to hear. gence was slow but sure. On the first day he saw the straw in Lawrence's mouth, but attached no significance to it. On the second day it occurred to him, quietly watching. that the customers to whom Lawrence exhibited the straw also had straws in their mouths, and generally retired without buying anything. He resolved to hear what was said. Lawrence had seen him in the White Hart at Sudbury, and he did not wish to be recognised. Accordingly as a precaution against this, he pulled his hood well over his head, half closed his eyes, and screwed up one corner of his mouth. Thus disguised he lounged calmly past the booth, and listened. He heard the question about Wandlebury, and returned to Harry Hurst's tent to meditate on it, with an increased vacancy in the expression of his eye.

On the third day he loitered past again, and heard the question about Wandlebury repeated to another customer with a straw in his mouth. This time Docket permitted himself to wink, and when he returned to the tent was rallied by the Canon on the owlish solemnity of his visage. "Docket is either drunk," he said, or up to mischief."

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CHAPTER XXVI.

RALPH GOES TO WANDLEBURY CAMP AND MEETS

SIMON D'YPRES.

ON Sunday morning soon after ten Ralph walked out to Wandlebury, taking the old Roman road right over the ridge of the GogMagog hills. As he went along he could see many parties converging on the same spot, and here and there on the slopes of Gog Magog little groups were visible, the members of which seemed to him to be lying or squatting in mere idle enjoyment till he observed that they invariably intercepted anybody moving in the direction of the old camp.

From this he judged that they were acting as outlying pickets.

He himself was hailed by the commandant of one of those posts just as he gained the crest of the hill. The man came down from the bank where he was lying with his companions, and asked Ralph whither he was going. Ralph twirled the straw in his mouth and answered, "To Wandlebury."

"You don't know me?" said the man with a smile. He was dressed like a well-todo labourer in his Sunday clothes, closely shaved, a red hood over his head with a long liripip hanging down behind. A very respectable figure he looked in his gray kirtle reaching to the knees, and his worsted gaiters of a colour to match the hood.

Ralph started at the voice and looked again. It was Simon d'Ypres at last.

The disguised merchant called to one of his comrades to take his place, and walked along with Ralph towards the camp.

"Lawrence has told me of your message,"

i

poor commons the protection that they ask? How can it be too late if he is willing and able to do this?"

'But you should not encourage them in this," cried Ralph. "Justice they should have, but more than justice-if they ask this they are no better than tyrants themselves, and honest men should not aid and abet them."

Ralph spoke warmly, and in the heat of his eloquence turned to face his companion, trying as it were to catch and hold his eyes with his own.

The merchant smiled and said, "You seem to accuse me."

Ralph hastened to disclaim this.

"No," said the merchant earnestly, “I do not aid and abet them. I do not encourage

But who Men who

them in asking more than justice. shall measure what justice is? have long suffered injustice are not good judges of their own claims. They are hot for revenge: when they think that all they want is their own rights, they are really burning to avenge old injuries. I have done my best not to encourage them in this but to discourage them. But they listen to others more than to me. They listen most willingly to wild babblers who shout against the rich and their luxuries, and promise to drag them down. You will hear them today. I have brought you to this place that you might hear them, and see how greedily the poor commons swallow their rhetoric and their gibes. It is natural enough: the rich have shown them little sympathy. You will hear for yourself how your promise of inquiry is laughed to scorn and derided as a mere trick. It is natural again: the poor commons have been so often deceived."

"But," said Ralph, "why do you not speak out against those blind guides? Why do you suffer them to mislead the people?"

The merchant shrugged his shoulders. "I am no orator," he said.

"But these men are nothing but orators. They love only to hear themselves talk and see the people moved by their words."

"Am I too self-confident? Listen and you shall judge. If the king is tender-hearted to his poor subjects, there is all the more hope in what I propose to do."

"But how can you do more than discover what justice requires, and carry that into effect?"

"True; but the king can act only through commissioners; the king's commissioners must be men of rank and wealth, or the friends of such; and the justice of the king's commissioners may be very different from my justice or your justice. They will themselves be masters of şervants, owners of bondmen. Think you that they are likely of their own free will to give servants and bondmen what they ask, seeing that to give is to impoverish themselves, to contract their own pleasures, to limit their own grandeur?" "Some of them would not yield," said Ralph.

Many of them," answered Simon: "most of them, and when it came to the pinch, they would act as one man to keep the bondmen down."

"But they might be persuaded," said Ralph.

66

"Yes," answered the merchant, "by fear. They may be persuaded by fear against established and unconscious selfishness it is a stronger motive than love. And it is by fear that I propose to persuade them. Let them once see that the poor commons are to be feared, and they will yield. At present they are too contemptuous to make any concession to justice. And now you understand my plan. These hot-headed orators, whom you will presently hear, excite the storm which I and others are labouring to direct. Why did the Jacquerie fail? Only through want of union. We must give our poor commons union, and then their numbers will tell. At present the nobles and rich commons care no more for their wretched thralls than for swarms of flies."

Ralph pondered for a little in silence. "But," he asked at length, "what if the storm raised should be too strong! The wind then instead of filling your sails might wreck your ship."

"That is my fear," said the merchant. "And yet you persevere?" said Ralph, with some surprise.

"What else can I do? If the king is with us, there is hope. His name is still a tower of strength. The inhuman pride of the

nobles must somehow be broken."

Ralph said nothing. The picture which the merchant had suggested to his mind of two opposed classes on the eve of deadly

strife-the one contemptuous and overween ing, the other stubborn, resentful, ready t give battle with the courage of despair and the savagery of hatred long pent up, filled him with a horror that kept him silent.

Could nothing be done for peace? Wa war inevitable?

They had now reached the old camp a Wandlebury. Ralph looked round on the motley gathering, buzzing in groups on the breezy hill under the changeful Septembe sky, as if he could read in their faces wha was to come. So impressed was his imagina tion with the thought of savage and vindic tive rebellion, that he was almost startled to see so many faces without any outward trace of sullen gloom or brooding hatred. Weatherbeaten faces were there in plenty, rough. tanned throats running up into shaggy matted hair; but the features in general had the grave, hard set of severe bodily labour and sober fare. A certain glisten in the eyes was the only visible sign of excitement. and it betokened rather vague curiosity and expectation than a fixed common purpose. The great bulk of the assembly consisted of peasants whose lives were spent in dull, hard routine, and who were not easily moved out of their hourly attitude of stolid, plodding endurance. Hard, monotonous work had taken all the vivacity out of them. But the crowd contained also many men in better dress, in clothes that were at least whole and unpatched, though made of homely materials. tradesmen mostly from the small towns. whom the extortions and vexatious interferences of overlords had driven to make common cause with the peasants. Cambridge itself, with its standing disputes with the University and the religious houses, contributed a goodly proportion of this class. These more vivacious members of the meeting formed groups in which animated discussion went on of the rumours brought to the fair by visitors from a distance, the peasants standing by now hearkening with open mouth, now gazing inquiringly about with that peculiar glistening look of excited expectation.

"These men cannot be such ungovernable savages," thought Ralph to himself. "They look honest and laborious and patient drudges, not easily goaded to violent courses.' He had never seen this human sea except in a calm, and it was hard to believe that it could ever be excited to a storm. He looked over the assembly, wondering whether the merchant's alarm was justified, and consider ing in what terms he should report to Sir Simon Burley.

He was roused from his reflections by suddenly hearing the merchant at his side. exclaim in an excited voice: "Thank God. Here he comes!"

At that very moment Ralph had caught sight of a familiar countenance in the crowd, with two great eyes directed at himself. Yes; it was Docket: Docket also had mastered the pass. Ralph was astonished to see Docket there, but the merchant claimed his attention before he could frame any speculation on the subject.

"Thank God! Here he comes," said the merchant.

"Who?" asked Ralph, catching something of his eagerness.

The merchant pointed along the straight Roman road in the direction of Linton. Ralph saw, about a mile off, a black figure on a small pony trotting rapidly towards. Wandlebury.

"Who is it?" asked Ralph.

"The priest of St. Mary's," answered the merchant, "our trusty shepherd John Ball. I am glad he has come. I sent a messenger to him as soon as Lawrence told me what you had said to him. We may now be able to keep the violent men in check."

MORLEY ROBERTS.

IN the summer of 1888 the nation is called upon to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the defeat of the "Invincible Armada" of Spain, an event of the greatest significance to the English-speaking race. We are asked to commemorate that event in a manner which shall impress its importance upon the people of these realms, and especially upon the young, as well as to show to other nations that we are not unmindful of our obligations to the men of the Elizabethan age who nobly defended this land when it was so closely threatened by the invading hosts of Philip II., incited thereto by the Sovereign Pontiff.

How this commemoration shall be carried out is still an open question; but that, in this age of anniversaries, it deserves to be so celebrated can scarcely be matter for doubt. True, it may be urged, and has already been suggested, that having just passed through all the exceptional excitement of a Jubilee year, the nation might be allowed to rest in peace for a while. But as the people of this country have no control over events and cannot choose the time when such historical anniversaries shall fall, we must be content to take them as they come, and carry them out to the best of our ability, even though, as next year, they come in double rank.'

1 Referring to the Armada tercentenary and the bicentenary of the Revolution of 1688.

The proposal for an Armada celebration emanates from Plymouth, where, a while ago, a pardonable enthusiasm was evinced over the honoured memory of Sir Francis Drake, "first of England's vikings as a sailor."2

The historical town of Plymouth may be termed the home and nursery of the British navy from very early times, and around it are centred many of the most noteworthy incidents of national naval annals. Plymouth was the abiding-place (though not the birthplace) of Drake when he was not scour ing the seas in quest of Spanish gold, or "singeing the King of Spain's beard." It was from hence he sailed in all his expeditions, and to which he returned from his memorable voyage when he "put a girdle round the earth." From hence also sailed Hawkins and Frobisher and Ralegh and many another Elizabethan hero; and in later days Plymouth witnessed the departure, in 1620, of the Pilgrim Fathers to found colonies in the New World; and it was from the same port that Captain Cook sailed on his eventful voyage of discovery in 1768. It was at Plymouth also that the fleet, under the command of Lord Charles Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake, awaited the coming of the Duke of Medina Sidonia and his " floating Babel" freighted with inen, munitions, and

2 Burritt.

3 Drake was born at Crowndale, near Tavistock.