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The King looked at the ure, at the little crowd of hushed expectant rustics beyond the bridge, and finally at the face of Chandos, which shone with amusement

"What is this, John?" he asked

"You reet hiht errant in his day"

"That indeed he was--none better have I known"

"So is his son Nigel, as fierce a young war-hawk as ever yearned to use beak and claws; but held fast in the ht There he stands at the bridge-head, as was the wont in our fathers' tilish hie of chivalry; so that the situation was after his own heart

"He is not yet a knight?"

"No, sire, only a Squire"

"Then he ood what he has done Is it fitting that a young untried Squire should venture to couch his lance against the best in England?"

"He hath givena paper from his tunic "Have I your permission, sire, to issue it?"

"Surely, John, we have no cavalier more versed in the laws of chivalry than yourself You know this young h honor which he asks Let us hear his defiance"

The knights and squires of the escort,with interest and soure in front of them Now at a call from Sir Walter Manny they asse and Chandos had halted Chandos cleared his throat and read froneurs, chevaliers et escuyers,' so it is headed, gentle of Tilford, son of Sir Eustace Loring, of honorable entlee Thus says he: 'For the great desire that I, a most humble and unworthy Squire, entertain, that I entlee of the Way in the hope that some of them may condescend to do some small deed of arms upon me, or that I may deliver them from any vohich they may have taken This I say out of no estee of these fa of are, I will hold the bridge with sharpened lances against any or all who ht lasts"