It is a fine summer morning - sunny, soft, and still. But through the
air there runs a thrill of coming stir. King John has slept at Duncroft
Hall, and all the day before the little town of Staines has echoed to the
clang of armed men, and the clatter of great horses over its rough
stones, and the shouts of captains, and the grim oaths and surly jests of
bearded bowmen, billmen, pikemen, and strange-speaking foreign spearmen.
Gay-cloaked companies of knights and squires have ridden in, all travel-
stained and dusty. And all the evening long the timid townsmen's doors
have had to be quick opened to let in rough groups of soldiers, for whom
there must be found both board and lodging, and the best of both, or woe
betide the house and all within; for the sword is judge and jury,
plaintiff and executioner, in these tempestuous times, and pays for what
it takes by sparing those from whom it takes it, if it pleases it to do
so.
Round the camp-fire in the market-place gather still more of the Barons'
troops, and eat and drink deep, and bellow forth roystering drinking
songs, and gamble and quarrel as the evening grows and deepens into
night. The firelight sheds quaint shadows on their piled-up arms and on
their uncouth forms. The children of the town steal round to watch them,
wondering; and brawny country wenches, laughing, draw near to bandy ale-
house jest and jibe with the swaggering troopers, so unlike the village
swains, who, now despised, stand apart behind, with vacant grins upon
their broad, peering faces.
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