For my part, since I was not Prue, I soon forgave the man, in return for the great story he had to tell of the Prince's entry into the city of Exeter. For he had beheld that great pageant, with news of which all the west was soon to be ringing, and, indeed, in no great space, the whole country. And, if it gained as much in many mouths as I have since reason to suppose it gained in Farmer Kidd's, 't is little wonder it was soon believed an army of giants and magicians had crossed the sea in aid of the Protestant religion. The Earl of Macclesfield, who had come out of Holland with the Prince, leading a band of English gentlemen, two hundred strong, was with his following an object of wondrous admiration to Mr. Kidd, who would never tire, I thought, in telling of their great Flanders horses, their glittering armor, and their negro slaves, one to each man, in white and feathered turbans. And then it was the bridge of boats laid across the Exe in the twinkling of an eye to give passage to the wagons; the twenty pieces of ordnance--great brass cannon, only to be moved by teams of sixteen horses to each; the stature of the men; the new sort of muskets; the order of the discipline, so that none would so much as steal a hen from a cottage garden, but all things were as willingly paid for as supplied. Then Kidd must draw comparisons between these military manners and those of Kirke's and Trelawney's Regiments of Foot, as seen in the troubles of three years ago; and all this time poor I waiting on his words but half interested, and satisfied not at all, until I could lead him, too full of his own great importance to perceive the guidance, to some description of the Prince's Swedish Regiment of Horse. For it was to this body that Mr. Royston had, it was now some months, been transferred, receiving at the same time promotion to the rank of captain. So as long as our messenger, between the draughts of his ale fetched him by Prudence with hands as willing as the pouting mouth would fain have shown her reluctant, would descant of the black chargers, the black armor, the great broadswords, and the furred cloaks of this same Swedish cavalry, I listened as eagerly as my father had done to it all. And as the man dwelt on the gallant show they did make I was plotting to bring him to some mention of what I doubted not was among them the gallantest figure of all, but was prevented by my father asking if Mr. Kidd would ride the same road again, and carry a letter to His Highness of Orange. "With the best meal we can make you on short notice, Mr. Kidd, to comfort you within, and the best nag in Drayton stables between your knees?" said Sir Michael, in conclusion of his request.