"You won't marry her!' says the old gentleman, angrily.

"❝ And live after it!' says Tom. I'd sooner marry a mermaid, with a small-tooth comb and looking-glass.'

"Then take the consequences,' says the other.

"With those words-I beg your kind attention here, gentlemen, for it's worth your notice-the old gentleman wetted the forefinger of his right hand in some of the liquor from the crucible that was spilt on the floor, and drew a small triangle on Tom's forehead. The room swam before his eyes, and he found himself in the watch-house."

"Found himself where?" cried the vice, on behalf of the company generally.

"In the watch-house," said the chairman. "It was late at night, and he found himself in the very watch-house from which he had been let out that morning."

"Did he go home?" asked the vice.

"The watch-house people rather objected to that," said the chairman; "so he stopped there that night, and went before the magistrate in the morning. Why, you're here again, are you?' says the magistrate, adding insult to injury; 'we'll trouble you for five shillings more, if you can conveniently spare the money.' Tom told him

he had been enchanted, but it was of no use. He told the contractors the same, but they wouldn't believe him. It was very hard upon him, gentlemen, as he often said, for was it likely he'd go and invent such a tale? They shook their heads and told him he'd say any thing but his prayersas indeed he would; there's no doubt about that. It was the only imputation on his moral character that ever I heard of.”

THE KNIGHT BANNERET.

BY MISS AGNES STRICKLAND.

Henry our King came over the sea,
With pomp and with pride of chivalry.”
OLD BALLAD.

MILES ARMOURER, so called from the craft to which he had served his apprenticeship in the early part of the fifteenth century, was one of those fortunate military adventurers of the reign of Henry the Fifth, who, from the lowest ranks of society, earned a passage to wealth and high station with the sword. He abandoned the anvil, and cast aside the hammer and leathern apron, to join the gallant muster that followed the banner of their youthful sovereign to the fair fields of France.

It was in vain that his father and his master represented to Miles the folly of forsaking a craft in which he had acquired some skill, in the commencement, too, of a long war, which was always esteemed a golden season for armourers and their

men; Miles was inflexible in his determination 66 to do or die."

The glories of Cressy and Poictiers were fresh in the minds of men, and the spoils borne by English soldiers from sacked cities and plundered convents, were held in due account by craftsmen who toiled hardly and grudgingly for their penny fee. Miles, the armourer, considered that battering French harness would in all probability prove a more profitable employment than making and mending English mail. Moreover, he had handled weapons of war long enough to acquire a desire to brandish them in battle-fields, so he helped himself to the best tempered blade on his master's stall, and eloped with it to join the royal armament at Southampton..

A prosperous gale soon wafted him with the rest of his comrades to the shores of Normandy, to him the land of promise, where by the dint of hammering French casques to good purpose, he beat his way into King Henry's notice, and obtained immediate promotion. Being possessed of great strength, invincible courage, and a spirit of enterprize that rendered him insensible to danger, he was soon considered one of the boldest champions of the English host, and having rapidly advanced from step to step, he was in due time honoured with the command of a battalion.

At the battle of Agincourt he performed such memorable services in breaking the long-impenetrable lines of the chivalrous Alanson, that he was deemed worthy of receiving the glorious distinction of knighthood, under the royal standard of England, from the hand of his victorious sovereign.

"Your name?" said the king, as he unsheathed his conquering sword, when Miles, in obedience to his gracious command, approached and bent the knee before him.

This usual, but unexpected question threw the doughty champion into no slight perplexity, for he could boast of none other than that which he had received at the baptismal font. It is, however, necessary for a knight to have a surname, and the valiant Miles had only the choice between a derivative from his father's name, which was Sim, or that of his own craft. Neither of these was particularly agreeable to the aspiring candidate for the golden spurs, who, with glory, had acquired its usual attendant, pride, and was conscious that he was in the very act of acquiring a name, not only for himself, but for his descendants. Had he foreseen this circumstance, he would doubtless have taken into consideration the possibility, to say nothing of the expediency, of Normanizing the plebeian patronymic of Sim's