"But they`re a clean folk, lads," the first man went on; "he was whiteas white as birchbarkand some of them are such fine fellows, you might think they were nobles."

"I pray you, Sir Knight," said Rowena, "to cease a language so commonly used by strolling minstrels, that it becomes not the mouth of knights or nobles. Certes, you constrain me to sit down, since you enter upon such commonplace terms, of which each vile crowder hath a stock that might last from hence to Christmas."