In the great hall at Harby a motley fellowship were assembled. If a
stranger from a strange land, wafted thither on some winged Arabian
carpet or flying horse of ebony, could have beheld the place and the
company, he would have been hard put to it to find any reasonable
explanation of what his eyes witnessed. In the middle of the hall
some five singular figures stood on line: two tall, powerful lads
with foolish faces, flagrant farm-hands; an old, bowed man with the
snow of many winters on his hair; an impish lad who might have
welcomed fourteen springs; and, finally, a rubicund, buxom woman with
very red cheeks, very blue eyes, very brown hair, whose person
suggested the kitchen a league off. Each of these persons handled a
pike, carrying it at an angle different from that of the others, and
each of them gazed with painfully attentive stare at the oaken table
near the hearth upon which Hercules Halfman sat learnedly expounding
the mysteries of the pike drill, while Thoroughgood stood between
him and the awkward squad to illustrate in his own person and with
the pike he carried the teachings of the instructor.
"Order your pikes," Halfman commanded. "Advance your pikes. Shoulder
your pikes." Then, as these orders were obeyed deftly enough by
Thoroughgood and with bewildering variety by the others, he
continued, "Trail your pikes," and then broke sharply off to
expostulate with one of the farm-hands.
"Now, Timothy Garlinge, call you that trailing of a pike. Why, Gammer
Satchell carries herself more soldierly."
Timothy Garlinge grinned loutishly at this rebuke, but the fat dame
whom Halfman's flourish indicated seemed to dilate with satisfaction.
"It were shame," she chuckled, "if a handy lass could not better a
lobbish lad."
The impish lad grinned derision.
"Ay," he commented; "but an old fool's best at her spits and
griddles."
A most unmilitary titter rippled along the rank but broke upon the
rock of Mrs. Satchell's anger. It might have seemed to many that it
were impossible for the dame's cheeks to be any redder, but Mistress
Satchell's visage showed that nature could still work miracles. With
face a rich crimson from chin to forehead, she made to hurl herself
upon the leering, fleering mannikin, but was caught in the
unbreakable restraint of neighbor Clupp's clasp.
"You limb, I'll griddle you!" Mistress Satchell gasped, panting in
the embracing arms. Halfman played the peace-maker with a sour smile.
"There, there, goody," he expostulated; "youth will have its yelp."
He turned with something of a yawn to Thoroughgood.
"Why a devil did you press gossip cook into the service?"
Thoroughgood shook his head protestingly.
"Nay, the virago volunteered," he explained, with a look that seemed
to supplement speech in the suggestion that it were best to let
Mistress Satchell have her own way. This was evidently Mistress
Satchell's own view of the matter.
"Truly," she exclaimed, "if my lady, being no more than a woman, is
man enough to garrison her house against the Roundheads, she cannot
deny me, that am no less than a woman, the right to handle a pike."
Halfman, eying the dame's assertive rotundities, thought that he
would be indeed a quarrelsome fellow who should deny her evident
femininity.
"You are a lovely logician," he approved. "Enough."
Then resuming his sententious tone of military command, he took up
the task where he had left it off.
"Trail your pikes."
The order was this time obeyed by the company with something
approaching resemblance to the action of Thoroughgood, and Halfman
went on.
"Cheek your pikes."
Out of the confused cluttering of weapons which ensued, Timothy
Garlinge emerged tremulous.
"Please, sir," he gurgled, "I've forgotten how to cheek my pike."
Halfman mastered exasperation bravely, as, taking a pike from the
hands of Thoroughgood, he strove to illuminate rusticity.
"Use your pike thus, noddy," he lessoned, good-naturedly, wielding
the weapon with the skill of a practised pikeman. But the
illustration was as much lost upon Garlinge as the original command,
and in his attempt to imitate it he whirled his arm so recklessly
that his companions scattered in dismay, and Halfman himself was
fain to move a step or two backward to avoid the yokel's meaningless
sweeps.
"Have a care," he cried. "If you work so wild you will damage your
company."
Mrs. Satchell, taking her post in the now restored line, shook her
red fist at the delinquent.
"He had best not damage me," she thundered, "or I'll damage him to
some purpose."
"Silence in the ranks!" Halfman commanded, sharply. "Charge your
pikes," he ordered.
This order was obeyed indifferently and tamely enough by all save the
egregious Mrs. Satchell, who delivered so lusty a thrust with her
weapon that Halfman was obliged to skip back briskly to avoid
bringing his breast acquainted with her steel.
"Nay, woman, warily!" he shouted, half laughing, half angry. "Play
your play more tamely. I am no rascally Roundhead."
Mrs. Satchell grounded her weapon and wiped the sweat from her
shining forehead with the back of her red hand. There was a deadly
earnest in her eyes, a deadly earnest in her speech.
"I cry you mercy," she panted. "But I am a whole-hearted woman, and
when you bid me charge I am all for charging."
Halfman did his best to muffle amusement in a reproving frown. "Limit
your zeal discreetly," he urged, and was again the drill sergeant.
"Shoulder your pikes."
The weapons followed the words with some show of decorum.
"Comport your pikes."
Again the evolution was carried out with some degree of accuracy.
"Port your pikes."
Here all followed the word of command fairly well with the exception
of Garlinge's fellow-rustic, who simply strove to repeat the order
already executed. Halfman turned upon him sharply.
"Now, Clupp," he cried, "will you never learn the difference between
port and comport?"
Clupp, the fellow addressed, bashful at finding himself the object of
attention, swayed backward and forward with his pikestaff for a
pivot, laughing vacantly.
"No, sir," he gaped, stupidly. Master Halfman's lip wrinkled
menacingly, and he reached his hand to his staff that lay upon the
table.
"Indeed!" he said. "Then I must ask Master Crabtree Cudgel to lesson
you."
He advanced threateningly towards the terrified fellow, but long
before he could reach him Dame Satchell had interposed her generous
bulk between officer and private, not, however, as was soon shown,
from any desire to intercede for the culprit.
"Leave him to me, sir," she entreated, vehemently. "If you love me,
leave him to me."
And, indeed, her angry eyes shone warranty that the offender would
fare badly at her hands. Halfman waved her aside with a gesture of
impatience.
"Mistress Satchell," he protested, "you are a valiant woman, but a
rampant amazon."
Dame Satchell's cheeks glowed a deeper crimson, and her variable
anger raged from Clupp to Halfman.
"Call me no names," she squalled, "though you do call yourself
captain, or I'll call you the son of a--"
However Mistress Satchell intended to finish her objurgation it was
not given to the company to learn, for Halfman tripped up her speech
with a nimble interruption.
"The son of a pike, so please you," he suggested, with a smile that
softened the virago's heart. "There, we have toiled enough to-day and
it tests our tempers. Dismiss."
This command he addressed to the whole of his amazing company; to
Dame Satchell he gave a congee with a more than Spanish flourish: "To
your pots and pans, valorous."
Dame Satchell, mollified by his compliment, shrugged her fat
shoulders. "'Tis little enough I have to put in them," she grumbled.
"Roast or boiled, boiled, fried, or larded, all's one, all's none.
We'll be mumbling shoe-leather soon."
She sighed heavily at the thought, and moved slowly towards the door
at the end of the hall beneath the gallery. Halfman, unheeding her,
had turned to the table and was intently poring over the large map
that lay there together with a loaded pistol. Thoroughgood gave
orders to the men.
"Garlinge and Clupp, go scour the pikes. Tom Cropper, find something
to keep you out of mischief. As for you, Gaffer Shard, you may rest
awhile."
The old man shook his frosty head vigorously. "Nay, nay," he piped,
"I need no rest. My old bones are loyal and cannot tire in a good
cause. God save the King."
He gave a shrill cheer which was echoed loudly by men and boy, and so
cheering they tramped out of the hall in the trail of Mother
Satchell, Garlinge staggering under the load of pikes which the lad
had officiously foisted on to his shoulder, Clupp laughing vacantly
after his manner, and steadfast old Shard waving his red cap and
chirping his shrill huzzas.