"Body o' me, father!" exclaimed Thomelin, interrupting, "curb your tongue, I pray thee, or you'll get me and my house into trouble. We will take the rest for granted. I know," added he mockingly, and then half chanted, half repeated, the rhyme which has since agitated the country to its centre, and shaken the throne to its foundation--
"'When Adam delved, and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?'"
"On my faith," said the Northumbrian, with a grim smile, "I cannot but be strongly of opinion that, as affairs now are, it is mighty well for England that we have learned to do something more to the purpose than delve and spin. Now that the Scots are on this side of the Border, I trow it will require something more than spades and spindles to drive them back again; and of this I am well assured, that they would never go for a few fine words about Adam and Eve."
"Well answered," exclaimed Thomelin admiringly, and the company having generally expressed their concurrence in Thomelin's opinion, the Northumbrian gave a slight indication of the satisfaction he felt with himself by calling for another quart of ale, and drinking it off, perhaps to his own health.
"Who is that mad demagogue?" I asked of Thomelin in a whisper.
"Oh," replied mine host, "it's only the crazy priest who is called Jack Ball. Nobody values his words more than they do a sough of wind."
"And who," asked I, "is the stalwart Northman?"
"John Copeland, an esquire of Northumberland and, I believe, a doughty man-at-arms as ever faced a foe. He has been at Westminster on affairs of state connected with the irruption of the Scots; and he turns his face homeward to-morrow to take part in the war."
The name of Copeland was not new to me. In fact, I had often heard it mentioned with honour: for the Northern esquire had figured in a prominent manner, ten years earlier, in the operations before the castle of Dunbar, when Cospatrick's stronghold was being besieged by the Earl of Salisbury, and defended by Black Agnes, Earl Patrick's famous countess; and he had, on a memorable occasion, by his instinctive sagacity, saved Salisbury from being taken prisoner. Remembering these things I looked at him with curiosity and interest; moreover, having learned that the queen had set out for York, and perceiving the necessity of following with the letters intrusted to my care, I felt that I could hardly do better than beg the Northumbrian to permit me to bear him company on the road.