And then with a rousing shout the three boys swooped down upon the beleaguered little damsel and dragged her off to the dim stone staircase that led to the square tower of the keep.

"Have done, have done, Harry," pleaded the little girl as she escaped from her captors. "Master Lionel, thou surely shouldst defend a princess in distress."

"Ay, Princess, but our tutor, Master Rothwell, says that I am to obey my Liege and Prince, and him alone," protested gay young Lionel, "and sure he bade me play the trumpeter of King Erik."

"A plague on King Erik," cried Philippa, seeking refuge behind the high-backed chair. "I wish I had ne'er heard of him and his kingdom of Denmark. O Harry! nurse Joanna tells me that they do eat but frozen turnips and salted beef in his dreadful country, and that the queen-mother, Margaret, wears a gambeson and hauberk like to a belted knight."

"Why, of course she does," assented the mischievous Harry; and, drawing a solemn face he added: "Yes—and she eats a little girl, boiled with lentils, every saint's day as a penance. That 's why they want an English wife for Erik, for, seest thou, there are so many saints' days that there are not left in Denmark wee damsels enough for the queen's penance."

But the sight of pretty Philippa's woeful tears stayed her brother's teasing.

"There, there," he said, soothingly; "never mind my fun, Philippa. This Erik is not so bad a knight I'll warrant me, and when thou art Queen of Denmark, why, I shall be King of England, and my trumpeter, Sir Lionel here, shall sound a gallant defiance as I come

and thus will we gallop away with the rescued queen," he added, as seizing Philippa in his arms he dashed around the room followed by his companions. But while the four were celebrating, in a wild dance of "all hands around," the fancied rescue of the misused queen, the tapestry parted and Sir Hugh de Waterton, the governor of the king's children, entered.

"My lord Prince," he said, "the king thy father craves thy presence in the council-room."

"So; I am summoned," said the Prince; "good Sir Hugh, I will to the king at once. That means 'good-by,' Sis; for to-morrow I am off to the Welsh wars to dance with the lords-marchers and Owen Glendower, to a far different strain. Yield not to these leaguering Danes, Philippa, but if thou dost, when I am back from the Welsh wars, I'll hie me over sea

and, kissing his sister fondly, Harry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales, parted the heavy arras and descended to the council-room.

And now the scene changes. Months have passed since that jolly romp in the old castle, among the hills of Hertfordshire, and under a wet and angry sky we stand within the king's tent, glad to escape from the driving storm.

To young Lionel Langley, as he peeped through the outer curtains of the tent and watched the floods of rain, it seemed as if all the mountains in the shires of Brecon and Radnor had turned themselves into water-spouts to drench and drown the camp of the English invaders, as it lay soaked and shivering there in the marches of Wales. King Henry's tent, we learn from an old chronicle, was "picchid on a fayre playne," but Lionel thought it any thing but fair as he turned from the dismal prospect.

"Rain, rain, rain," he grumbled, throwing himself down by the side of stout Humfrey Wallys, archer in the king's guard; "why doth it always rain in this fateful country? Why can it not blow over? Why, why must we stay cooped up under these soaking tent-tops, with ne'er a sight of fun or fighting?"

"Ah, why, why, why?" said the good-natured archer "'t is ever why? with thee, Sir Questioner. But, if thou be riddling, ask us something easier. Why doth a cow lie down? Why is it fool's fun to give alms to a blind man? How many calves' tails doth it take to reach to the moon?"

"H'm," grunted Lionel, "thy riddles be as stale as Michaelmas mutton. I can answer them all."

"So—canst thou, young shuttle-brain?" cried the archer, "then, by the mass, thou shalt. Answer now, answer," he demanded, as he tripped up young Lionel's feet and pinned him to the ground with a pikestaff, "answer, or I will wash thy knowing face in my sack-leavings. Why doth a cow lie down?"

"Faith, because she cannot sit," lazily answered Lionel.

"Hear the lad! He doth know it, really. Well—why is it not wise to give alms to a blind man?" demanded Humfrey.

"Because," responded the boy, "even if thou didst, he would be glad could he see thee hanged—as would I also!"

"Thou young knave! Now—how many calves' tails will it take to reach the moon?"

"O Humfrey, ease up thy pikestaff, man; I can barely fetch my breath—how many? Why, one,—if it be long enough," and, wriggling from his captor, the nimble Lionel tripped him up in turn, and, in sheer delight at his discomfiture, turned a back somersault and landed almost on the toes of two unhelmeted knights, who came from the inner pavilion of the royal tent.

"Why, how now, young tumble-foot—dost thou take this for a mummer's booth, that thou dost play thy pranks so closely to thy betters?" a quick voice demanded, and in much shame and confusion Lionel withdrew himself hastily from the royal feet of his "most dread sovereign and lord," King Henry the Fourth, of England.

"Pardon, my Liege," he stammered, "I did but think to stretch my stiffened legs."

"So; thou art tent-weary, too," said the king; and then asked: "And where learn'dst thou that hand-spring?"

"So please your Majesty, from my lord Prince," the boy replied.

"Ay, that thou didst, I'll warrant me," said the king, good-humoredly. "In aught of prank or play, or tumbler's trick, 'tis safe to look to young Harry of Monmouth as our pages' sponsor. But where lags the lad, think you, my lord?" he asked, turning to his companion, the Earl of Westmoreland. "We should, methinks, have had post from him ere this."

"'T is this fearful weather stays the news, your Majesty," replied the earl. "No courserman could pass the Berwyn and Plinlimmon hills in so wild a storm."

"Ay, wild indeed," said the king, peering out through the parted curtains. "I am fain almost to believe these men of Wales, who vaunt that the false Glendower is a black necromancer who can call to his aid the dread demons of the air. Hark to that blast," he added, as a great gust of wind shook the royal tent. "'T is like a knight's defiance, and, like true knights, let us answer it. Hollo, young Lionel, be thou warder of thy king, and sound an answering blast."

Lionel, who was blest with the strong lungs of healthy boyhood, grasped the trumpet, and a defiant peal rang through the royal tent. But it was an unequal contest, for instantly, as chronicles old Capgrave, "there blew suddenly so much wynd, and so impetuous, with a gret rain, that the Kyng's tent was felled, and a spere cast so violently, that, an the Kyng had not been armed, he had been ded of the strok."

From all sides came the rush of help, and the king and his attendants were soon rescued, unharmed from the fallen pavilion. But Humfrey, the stout old archer, muttered, as he rubbed his well-thumped pate: "Good sooth, 'tis, truly, the art magic of Glendower himself. It payeth not to trifle with malignant spirits. Give me to front an honest foe, and not these hidden demons of the air."

As if satisfied with its victory over a mortal king, the fury of the storm abated, and that afternoon Lionel entered the royal presence with the announcement: "Tidings, my lord King; tidings from the noble Prince of Wales! a courier waits without."

"Bid him enter," said the king, and, all bespattered and dripping from his ride through the tempest, the courier entered and, dropping on his knee, presented the king a writing from the prince.

"At last!" said Henry, as he hastily scanned the note; "a rift in these gloomy clouds. Break we our camp, my lord Westmoreland, and back to Hereford town. We do but spend our strength to little use awaiting a wily foe in these flooded plains. This billet tells me that Sir Harry Percy and my lord of Worcester, with our son the Prince, have cooped up the rebels in the Castle of Conway, and that Glendower himself is in the Snowden Hills. As for thee, young Sir Harlequin," he added, turning to Lionel, "if thou wouldst try thy mettle in other ways than in tumbler's tricks and in defiance of the wind, thou mayst go with Sir Walter Blount to thy tutor, the Prince, and the Welsh wars in the north."

Next day, the camp was broken up, and, in high spirits, Lionel, with the small company of knights and archers detached for service in the north, left the southern marches for the camp of the prince.

It was the year of grace 1402. Henry of Lancaster, usurping the crown and power of the unfortunate King Richard II., ruled now as Henry IV., "by the grace of God, King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland." But "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," and, king though he was—"Most Excellent, Most Dread, and Most Sovereign Lord," as his subjects addressed him—he was lord and sovereign over a troubled and distracted realm. Scotland, thronging the Lowlands, poured her bonnets and pikes across the northern border; France, an ever-watchful enemy, menaced the slender possessions in Calais and Aquitaine; traitors at home plotted against the life of the king; and the men of Wales, rallying to the standard of their countryman, Owen Glendower, who styled himself the Prince of Wales, forced the English to unequal and disadvantageous battle among their hills and valleys. So the journey of Lionel to the north was a careful and cautious one; and, constantly on their guard against ambushes, surprises, and sudden assaults, the little band of archers and men-at-arms among whom he rode pushed their watchful way toward the Vale of Conway. They were just skirting the easterly base of the Snowden Hills, where, four thousand feet above them, the rugged mountain peaks look down upon the broad and beautiful Vale of Conway, when a noise of crackling branches ahead startled the wary archer, Wallys, and he said to Lionel:

"Look to thine arms, lad; there may be danger here. But no," he added, as the "view halloo" of the hunters rose in air, "'tis but the merry chase. Hold here, and let us see the sport."

Almost as he spoke, there burst from the thicket, not a hundred yards away, a splendid red deer, whose spreading antlers proclaimed him to be a "stag of twelve" or "stag-royal." Fast after him dashed the excited hunters; but, leading them all, spurred a sturdy young fellow of eager fifteen—tall and slender, but quick and active in every movement, as he yielded himself to the free action of his horse and cheered on the hounds. The excitement was contagious, and Lionel, spite of the caution of his friend the archer, could not restrain himself. His "view halloo" was shouted with boyish impetuosity as, fast at the heels of the other young hunter, he spurred his willing horse. But now the deer turned to the right and made for a distant thicket, and Lionel saw the young hunter spring from his lagging steed, and, with a stout cord reeled around his arm, dash after the stag afoot, while hounds and hunters panted far behind.

It was a splendid race of boy and beast. The lad's quick feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground, every spring bringing him nearer and nearer to his noble prey. There is a final spurt; the coil of cord flies from the hunter's arm, as his quick fling sends it straight in air; the noose settles over the broad antlers of the buck; the youth draws back with a sudden but steady jerk, and the defeated deer drops to earth, a doomed and panting captive.

"There is but one lad in all England can do that!" cried enthusiastic Lionel, as with a loud huzza, he spurred toward the spot so as to be "in at the death."

"Lend me thy knife, page," the boy hunter demanded, as Lionel sprang from his horse, "mine I think hath leaped from my belt into yonder pool."

Flash! gleamed the sharp steel in air; deep to the hilt it plunged into the victim's throat, and, kneeling on the body of the dying stag, Harry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales, the fleetest and most fearless of England's youthful hunters, looked up into Lionel's admiring face.

"Hey O!" he cried. "Sure, 'tis Lionel Langley! Why, how far'st thou, lad, and how cam'st thou here?"

"I come, my Lord," Lionel replied, "with Sir Walter Blount's following of squires and archers, whom his Majesty, the King, hath sent to thy succor."

"You are right welcome all," said Prince Harry, "and you come in good stead, for sure we need your aid. But wind this horn of mine, Lionel, and call in the hunt." And as Lionel's notes sounded loud and clear, the rest of the chase galloped up, and soon the combined trains rode on to the English camp in the Vale of Conway.

There, in the train of Prince Harry, Lionel passed the winter and spring; while his young leader, then scarce sixteen, led his hardy troops, a miniature army of scarce three thousand men, up and down the eastern marches of Wales, scouring the country from Conway Castle to Harlech Hold, and from the Irish Sea to Snowden and to Shrewsbury gates. The battles fought were little more than forays and skirmishes,—the retaliations of fire and sword, now in English fields and now on Welsh borders; but it was a good "school of the soldier," in which Lionel learned the art of war, and Harry of Monmouth bore himself right gallantly.

But greater troubles were brewing, and braver deeds in store. On a fair July morning in the year 1403, Lionel, who now served the prince as squire of the body, entering his pavilion hastily, said, in much excitement:

"My Lord, my Lord, the Earl of Worcester has gone!"

"Gone?" echoed the prince. "What dolt thou mean? Gone? When—where—how?"

"None know, my Lord," Lionel replied. "This morning his pavilion was found deserted, and with him are fled Sir Herbert Tressell, and the squires and archers of my lord of Worcester's train."

Now, the Earl of Worcester was the "tutor," or guardian, of the prince, a trusted noble of the House of Percy, and appointed by the king to have the oversight or guidance of young Harry; and his sudden flight from camp greatly surprised the prince.

"My lord Prince," said Sir Walter Blount, entering as hastily as had Lionel, "here is a courier from the worshipful Constable of Chester, with secret tidings that the Percies are in arms against my lord the king."

"The Percies up, and my lord of Worcester fled?" exclaimed the prince. "This bodes no good for us. Quick, get thee to horse, Lionel. Speed like the wind to Shrewsbury. Get thee fair escort from my lord of Warwick, and then on to the king at Burton." And in less than ten minutes Lionel was a-horse, bearing the prince's billet that told the doleful news of the new rebellion, spurring fast to Shrewsbury and the King.