Cornhill was at that time the stage whereon tailors most did congregate; and as troops were constantly passing that way, to and from the vicinity of the tower, John Hawkwood, wherever he met with them, sighed as he contrasted their jolly swash-buckler sort of air with his own melancholy look, gait, and calling. The King, Edward the Third, was then waging a most unjust war with France, and needed soldiers to champion his bad cause. Hawkwood recked little of the merits of the quarrel, but when a roving party of heroes pressed him to join, he met them more than half-way; and never was he more jubilant than when he changed his ’prentice muffin-cap for a peaked morrion, his dark rags for a gay suit, and a sword and a shield were the implements of his work, instead of a needle and thimble. Now young Hawkwood was not a lad to be satisfied with being simply a “man-at-arms.” Michel, in the French play, when he recounts how he was pressed into the service, says, “Mon Général me nomma soldat; mais ma nomination n’a pas eu de suite.” The boy from Sible Hedingham was made of other stuff than that which could make him be content with singing, like the pleasant gentleman in the ‘Dame Blanche,’—“Ah! quel plaisir d’être soldat!” He was resolved to lead as well as serve; and he served well, to give him the better chance of leading. It is the only policy that permanently succeeds. Officers were not dainty in those days, either of speech or anything else. Difficult as they were to satisfy, Hawkwood accomplished it. The man who laid on his blows with such good heart, and thwacked the foe so lustily and to excellent purpose, albeit in anything but an excellent cause, was a man whose sword was sure to carve out fortune for him. Accordingly, he soon passed from poor private to plumed captain. His purse was not much the better filled because of his brighter corslet and his new feathers; and as the foe he had to encounter was as badly furnished as himself, he got abundance of honour, but few pistoles. The King beheld him mowing down adversaries, as though he had been expressly engaged by Death to gather in his harvest. On the battle-field, the royal Edward dubbed the tailor knight. “Thou art the bravest knight,” said he, “in all the army.” “Umph!” murmured the cavalier of the needle, “and the poorest too!” But he had what to a brave man was better than bezants, dearer than dollars, and above marks and moidores,—he had praise from the Black Prince. That chivalric personage was perfectly ecstatic at witnessing the deeds which Hawkwood enacted on the bloody, but glorious, day at Poitiers. The praise enriched him as though it had been pistoles. What baron, standing in need of a gentleman cut-throat, would hesitate to engage, at any cost (it was only promising and breaking a pledge), a man with a sharp sword and a stout arm, who had a verbal character from such a master as he whose sword is now rusting in peace above the time-honoured tomb at Canterbury?