“Muscadella,” said Buonespoir, and lowered the basket to the table. Lemprière seized a flagon, drew it forth, looked closely at it, then burst into laughter, and spluttered, “St. Ouen’s muscadella, by the hand of Rufus!” Seizing Buonespoir by the shoulders, he forced him down upon a bench at the table, and pushed the trencher of spiced meat against his chest. “Eat, my noble lord of the sea and master of the cellar!” he gurgled out, and, tipping the flagon of muscadella, took a long draught. “God-a-mercy--but it has saved my life,” he gasped in satisfaction as he lay back in his great chair and put his feet on the bench whereon Buonespoir sat. They raised their flagons and toasted each other, and Lemprière burst forth into song, in the refrain of which Buonespoir joined boisterously: “King Rufus he did hunt the deer, With a hey ho, come and kiss me, Dolly! It was the spring-time of the year, Hey ho, Dolly shut her eyes! King Rufus was a bully boy, He hunted all the day for joy, Sweet Dolly she was ever coy: And who would e’er be wise That looked in Dolly’s eyes? “King Rufus he did have his day, With a hey ho, come and kiss me, Dolly! So get ye forth where dun deer play-- Hey ho, Dolly comes again! The greenwood is the place for me, For that is where the dun deer be, ’Tis where my Dolly comes to me: And who would stay at home, That might with Dolly roam? Sing hey ho, come and kiss me, Dolly!” Lemprière, perspiring with the exertion, mopped his forehead, then lapsed into a plaintive mood. “I’ve had naught but trouble of late,” he wheezed. “Trouble! trouble! trouble! like gnats on a filly’s flank!” and in spluttering words, twice bracketed in muscadella, he told of Michel de la Forêt’s arrest, and of his purpose to go to England if he could get a boat to take him. “’Tis that same business brings me here,” said Buonespoir, and forthwith told of his meeting with Angèle and what was then agreed upon. “You to go to England!” cried Lemprière, amazed. “They want you for Tyburn there.” “They want me for the gallows here,” said Buonespoir. Rolling a piece of spiced meat in his hand, he stuffed it into his mouth and chewed till the grease came out of his eyes, and took eagerly from a servant a flagon of malmsey and a dish of ormers. “Hush! chew thy tongue a minute,” said the seigneur, suddenly starting and laying a finger beside his nose. “Hush!” he said, again, and looked into the flicker of the candle by him with half-shut eyes. “May I have no rushes for a bed, and die like a rat in a moat, if I don’t get thy pardon, too, of the Queen, and bring thee back to Jersey, a thorn in the side of De Carteret forever! He’ll look upon thee assoilzied by the Queen, spitting fire in his rage, and no canary or muscadella in his cellar.”