neglect of duty. No parley here, varlet, but give us entrance."

"No parley here, varlet," echoes the priest.

The unhappy porter lays down his load, and selects the largest of the keys from the bunch at his girdle. The great door creaks on its hinges; and as it gives admission to the angry visitors of the inhospitable castle, half a dozen men, who had slept on in spite of the tumult, start up from their nap on the benches of the corridor, and with one voice exclaim, "Nicholas, have you got the herrings?"

Hunger, cold, weariness, offended dignity-all these are forgotten by the mother of the Pastons till she has provided for the security of their stronghold. During this tedious waiting she has refused to dismount from her horse; and now, riding even within the porch, she shouts with a voice of captainship for the delinquent leader of the men-at-arms,

William Penny, come forth." The spirit of soldiery drives out the spirit of drink; and in a moment William Penny snatches a partisan, and, lowering the point in gracious salutation, awaits the lady's commands. "William Penny, gather your men, and up with the drawbridge." The comrades have the word from their corporal and the feat is done. Again the point of lance is lowered, and again the lady commands-" William Penny, muster your men in the great hall." The tramp of heavy shoon proclaims that they are finding their way from the portal across the inner court. The

lady now dismounts from her steed; the porter and the cook have taken charge of the panniers; a torch is held by the trembling urchin who had shouted "Mant come in, bor," and who now keeps muttering, "M' uncle bod me." With the dignity of a queen, Mistress Margaret slowly paces into the hall, where William Penny and his men, with pike and crossbow stand in serried file in the bright moonlight which gleams through the traceried windows. Sir James Gloys follows in amaze, not clearly seeing the resources for supper; and still more amazed is he when the lady passes through the hall to the great staircase, saying, "Gentlemenat-arms, to your quarters; Sir James, give you good night."

The visits which Mistress Margaret Paston made to her son's castle of Caister were not frequent; and to her they were not pleasant visits. The fair inheritance which the Pastons had obtained, under the will of Sir John Fastolf, was a doubtful blessing. Its tenure was exceedingly precarious. Claimants to this great property-“ a rich jewel at need for all the country in time of war"-were there more than one; and they were each ready to take by the power of the strong arm what the law forbade them to take by any other power than the parchment missiles of the courts. The castle had within it few domestics; but their absence did not render the place lonely; for whenever a soldier, English or foreign, who was ready to fight for any cause, could be hired, Sir John Paston gave him

an introduction to the spacious courts of Caister. Small inquiry was there as to the moral qualities of these hirelings. There were few moveables left in Caister to excite their cupidity; there was scarcely anything to guard but the bare walls. Sometimes John Paston, the brother of Sir John (whom we shall call, to avoid confusion, by his familiar name of John of Gelston), would take the government of these ill-disciplined forces; and as he was a bold and skilful soldier, well informed in the warlike science of his day, John of Gelston ruled these knaves with a steady hand. Sometimes John Daubeney, a trusty friend of the house, held the rule; and then also some order was preserved. In the absence of these authorities, Mistress Margaret Paston occasionally took upon her the very difficult task of governing this irregular household. She was a wise and a high-minded matron in many things; but this duty was something beyond her capacity, even in her own opinion; and she frankly confessed, "I cannot well guide nor rule soldiers, and also they set not by a woman as they should set by a man." But, whoever was the commander at Caister, there was one thing essential to the rule of that small community, which is equally essential to the quiet government of the largest communities, that the people should be fed. Now it unfortunately happened that the day which we have recorded, on which Dame Paston and her chaplain took their way from her comfortable dowry house at Norwich to her son's somewhat

cheerless Castle of Caister, for the purpose of distributing Maunday on the following morning to the poor and afflicted, as became the lady of a great house-this day was marked at Caister by the absence even of "a lenten entertainment." In most great houses of that time, and, indeed, to a later period even, in houses of earls who lived in almost kingly state, the domestics were accustomed to what were called Scambling Days of Lent, which Bishop Percy has interpreted as "Days when no regular meals were provided, but every one shifted and scrambled for himself as well as he could." But in the Caister household, under the rule of the Pastons, the scambling days were not confined to this especial season, but prevailed with little interruption throughout the year. This arrangement was not the result of any philosophical theory, such as might be derived from a logical induction that as fasting was undoubtedly good at one season, it might be equally good at all seasons; but from certain necessities which pressed heavily upon a family that, in times when private as well as public affairs were greatly disordered, had more lands than rents, and desiring many things in exchange, had not means always at hand for conducting the exchange upon principles that could alone satisfy the traders of Yarmouth and Norwich, upon whose stores the household at Caister had a somewhat precarious dependence. It happened that at this season of Lent, in the ninth year of King Edward IV., Sir John Paston had reckoned some

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what too strongly upon the powers of abstinence which were possessed by his followers at Caister; and thus it also fell out that on the day when the good Mistress Margaret arrived at the fair but illvictualled castle of her son, there was a mutiny in the garrison, which could scarcely be considered an offence, for in truth the meal was exhausted, and so was the stock-fish; mutton was there none in the fold, nor beef in the salting-tub. The beerbarrel, however, was not quite empty; and to that and to sleep had the honest guardians of Caister addressed themselves with the utmost eagerness at the time of even-song, to find some compensation for their morning, noon, and afternoon privations. They were angry; they were rebellious. But they had the military virtue even in their sufferingsthey would not leave the post they were hired to defend. Thus it was that when good old Nicholas the porter, having shared his last loaf with the men-at-arms, had given over expecting his mistress as the night drew on (he did not reckon upon the unusually bad roads), he started off for the village of East Caister, where he trusted some kind Christian might succour him with a few loaves and a keg of herrings. In making this sally he turned key upon his companions; for the beer, although not of the strongest, had deranged their brains, weak from inanition. And so the drawbridge was down, and the portal shut, when Mistress Margaret Paston came to the castle.

The feelings of the widow of John Paston, first