Occupied with her own dreams, Sibyll respected those of her father; and so in silence, not altogether mournful, the morning and the noon passed, and the sun was sloping westward, when a confused sound below called Sibyll’s gaze to the lattice, which looked over the balustrade of the staircase into the vast yard. She saw several armed men, their harness hewed and battered, quaffing ale or wine in haste, and heard one of them say to the landlord,—
“All is lost! Sir Geoffrey Gates still holds out, but it is butcher work. The troops of Lord Hastings gather round him as a net round the fish!”
Hastings!—that name!—he was at hand! he was near! they would be saved! Sibyll’s heart beat loudly.
“And the captain?” asked Porpustone.
“Alive, when I last saw him; but we must be off. In another hour all will be hurry and skurry, flight and chase.” At this moment from one of the barns there emerged, one by one, the female vultures of the battle. The tymbesteres, who had tramped all night to the spot, had slept off their fatigue during the day, and appeared on the scene as the neighbouring strife waxed low, and the dead and dying began to cumber the gory ground. Graul Skellet, tossing up her timbrel, darted to the fugitives and grinned a ghastly grin when she heard the news,—for the tymbesteres were all loyal to a king who loved women, and who had a wink and a jest for every tramping wench! The troopers tarried not, however, for further converse, but, having satisfied their thirst, hurried and clattered from the yard. At the sight of the ominous tymbesteres Sibyll had drawn back, without daring to close the lattice she had opened; and the women, seating themselves on a bench, began sleeking their long hair and smoothing their garments from the scraps of straw and litter which betokened the nature of their resting-place.
“Ho, girls!” said the fat landlord, “ye will pay me for board and bed, I trust, by a show of your craft. I have two right worshipful lodgers up yonder, whose lattice looks on the yard, and whom ye may serve to divert.”
Sibyll trembled, and crept to her father’s side.
“And,” continued the landlord, “if they like the clash of your musicals, it may bring ye a groat or so, to help ye on your journey. By the way, whither wend ye, wenches?”
“To a bonny, jolly fair,” answered the sinister voice of Graul,—
“Where a mighty SHOWMAN dyes
The greenery into red;
Where, presto! at the word
Lies his Fool without a head;
Where he gathers in the crowd
To the trumpet and the drum,
With a jingle and a tinkle,
Graul’s merry lasses come!”