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232 we may. May I never see Chester Bridge again, if she is not a right winsome lass!'

'What hath the old toad under his arm?' cried one of the others. 'He hugs it to him as the devil hugged the pardoner.'

'Let us see, old bag of bones; let us see what it is that you have under your arm!' They crowded in upon him, while he, ignorant of their language, could but clutch the girl with one hand and the parcel with the other, looking wildly about in search of help. 'Nay, lads, nay!' cried Ford, pushing back the nearest archer. 'This is but scurvy conduct. Keep your hands off, or it will be the worse for you.'

'Keep your tongue still, or it will be the worse for you,' shouted the most drunken of the archers. 'Who are you to spoil sport?'

'A raw squire, new landed,' said another. 'By St. Thomas of Kent! we are at the beck of our master, but we are not to be ordered by every babe whose mother hath sent him as far as Aquitaine.'

'Oh, gentlemen,' cried the girl in broken French, 'for dear Christ's sake stand by us, and do not let these terrible men do us an injury.'

'Have no fears, lady,' Alleyne answered. 'We shall see that all is well with you. Take your hand from the girl's wrist, you north-country rogue!'

'Hold to her, Wat!' said a great black-bearded man-at-arms, whose steel breast-plate glimmered in the dusk. 'Keep your hands from your bodkins, you two, for that was my trade before you were born, and, by God's soul! I will drive a handful of steel through you if you move a finger.'

'Thank God!' said Alleyne suddenly, as he spied in the lamp-light a shock of blazing red hair which fringed a steel cap high above the heads of the crowd. 'Here is John, and Aylward, too! Help us, comrades, for there is wrong being done to this maid and to the old man.'

'Holà, mon petit,' said the old bowman, pushing his way