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218 of malvoisie,' said the prince, cheerily. 'Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been overlong from my sweet spouse, but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!' He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth.

 

the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England.

'How is it with the old man at Windsor?' asked one.

'And how with the good Queen Philippa?'

'And how with Dame Alice Perrers?' cried a third.

'The devil take your tongue, Wat!' shouted a tall young man seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. 'The prince would take your head off for those words.'

'By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little,' said another. 'It is as empty as a beggar's wallet.'

'As empty as an English squire, coz,' cried the first speaker. 'What a devil has become of the maître-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet.'

'Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least,' observed another, amid a burst of laughter.

'And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm,' cried the aggrieved Humphrey. 'But how of England, my lads of Loring?' 