"We come with full powers to claim your papers and to do your errand with the forces now besieging York. To be candid, you are suspect of eating more and drinking more than sober Parliament men should—and, faith, your crowded table here bears out the scandal." The three flushed guiltily, then gathered the dourness that stood to them for strength; and Kit wondered what was passing through his brother’s nimble brain. "Your credentials," snapped the one who seemed to be leader of the three. Michael, glancing round the board, saw a great pasty, with the mincemeat showing through where the knife had cut it. "Oh, my own password is _Christmas-pie_, friends! I encountered the dish at Banbury, and a great uproar followed when my brother gave it the true name." And now the Roundheads knew that they were being played with. So great was their party’s abhorrence of anything which savoured of the Mass, that a dish, pleasant in itself, had long since grown to be a shibboleth. The first man raised a pistol—a weapon that seemed out of keeping with his preacher’s garb—but Kit, longing for action instead of all this play of words, ran in with a jolly laugh, lifted his man high, as one lifts a child in frolic, and let him drop. The pistol fell, too, and the trigger snapped; but the Parliament man, however strong his trust in Providence might be, had forgotten Cromwell’s other maxim—that he should keep his powder dry. Michael’s voice was very gentle. "I said we came with full powers. It would be wiser not to play with fire. Indeed, we do not wish you ill, and, in proof of friendship, we are willing to change clothes with you." A little later Michael and Christopher came out, locking the door behind them. They asked the astonished host for scissors, and bade him clip their locks as close as he could contrive without knowledge of the barber’s art. And it was odd that these two, who six months ago had been close-cropped in Yoredale, resented the loss of the lovelocks they had grown in deference to fashion. To them it seemed as if they were losing the badge of loyalty, as if the fat host played Delilah to their Samson. "Keep that easy carriage of your bodies down, gentles, if you’re bent on play-acting," said Boniface, with a cheery grin. "How should we walk, then?" "With a humble stoop, sir—a very humble stoop—that was how the three Parliament men came in and asked for the best victuals I could give ’em." Michael’s laugh was easy-going; but, for all that, his orders were precise and sharp. Their horses, of the tell-tale white, were to be stabled securely out of eyeshot, and well tended until called for. He and Kit would ride out on the pick of the three Roundhead cattle. "As for that, sir, there’s no pick, in a manner of speaking. They rode in on the sorriest jades I ever saw at a horse-fair." "We’ll take the rough luck with the smooth."