"I am Denis Cleeve," I answered impatiently, "but I think my lack of Latin concerns us not now, when we are in danger of the law." "Ah! thou hast come into some scrape," he said, sitting up on the stones, and gathering up his knees. "Such as thou art, was the Telamonian Ajax, whom Homer represents as brave enough, though in learning but a fool. Why, what hast thou done, little Ajax, that thou hast wantonly forfeited the protection of the laws? But be brief in the telling, since I sit here in some discomfort, having entangled a great sword in my legs and fallen something heavily, which in a man of my years and weight is as if Troy herself fell; a catastrophe lamentable even to the gods." At this I could not contain my laughter, partly for the mistake into which he had been led that I feared a danger which was in truth his own, and partly for the accident of the sword which had tripped him up thus headlong; but more than either for the tragi-comick simile he had used in comparing himself in his downfall with the ancient city of Troy. "To return to my first question," I said as soon as I had settled my countenance. "Who hath set upon you? and whither has he fled?" "None hath set upon me, young sir," he replied sadly, "and ergo, we need search for no fugitive. I had armed myself, and the harness encumbering me (as indeed I have had little occasion for its use these forty years), I fell, in the manner you saw. And had not nature folded me in certain kindly wrappages of flesh above the common, my frame had been all broken and disjointed by this lapsus, which even now hath left me monstrous sore." I lifted him to his feet, though with some difficulty, for it was true that nature had dealt liberally with him in the matter of flesh; and having set him in a chair, I asked him how it was he came thus accoutred, since it was not (as he affirmed) to withstand any molestation. "Why, 'tis in order to molest others, numskull!" he cried, making as if to pass upon me with his recovered weapon. "And for withstanding, 'tis to withstand the Queen's enemies, and affront them that pretend annoyance to her Grace's peace. I am the scholar in arms, boy! the clerk to be feared. I am Sapientia Furens, and wisdom in the camp. Furthermore I am, though a poor professor of the Catholick Faith, yet one that detests the malignity of such as would establish that faith again by force of arms. It is by way of protest therefore, and in the vigour of loyalty, that I buckle on this, alas! too narrow panoply; and when I should be setting towards my grave, go forth upon my first campaign." "You are taking service in the Queen's army, Mr. Jordan?" I stammered, for the prospect of it was hardly to be credited.