“Madam!” Down goes the bowl, leeks, carrots, chopper and all a-spilling over the floor. “Aye,” says Peggy calmly, “gather up thy mess, Chock, and to work with the duds. Lay out my Levantine gown, my blue kerchief, my black silk hose, my brown cloak; and, from my mother’s press, take the thick fall of Brussels lace and the brown bonnet it’s tied to, and bring ’em hither; put them under the bed beside thy trundle so’s my father’ll not see ’em when he stops to bid me good-night. Borrow cook’s hat she bought at the Fair when she was young, and her delaine veil for thyself; for, so appareled as not to be recognized, will you, dear Chock, and my Lady Peggy take the coach on April the twelfth. But, Chock, remember, mum’s the word, an you let your tongue wag to my undoing, but the thousandth part of a syllable, your mistress and you part company forever! Go.” Chockey picked up Lady Peggy’s waving hand between a pinch of her apron, lest her onion-smelling fingers should foul so dainty a morsel, kissed it, and off and obeyed, speechless from surprise and veneration, both. At night’s fall,—the Earl, somnolent again from fire’s warmth and the port he would take, despite the surgeon’s orders to the contrary,—Lady Peggy, Chockey in her wake, purse in hand, went scouting through the kitchen-garden, the paddocks, the cowyard to the stable where Bickers’s pipe shone in the gloaming like a fire-gem as he dodged and lurched after a refractory colt. Bickers, albeit sometimes the slave of beer, was all times Lady Peggy’s abject, and it took no effort nor persuasion to gain him to her will. He took his orders amiably,—they were to secure two places in the London mail for to-morrow morning, and strictly to hold his peace both now and forever about the whole concern. Peggy gave him the price of the seats and with wise Castle-mistress foresight, she showed Bickers a sovereign beside. “And Bickers,” said Lady Peggy, “considering that the devil walks abroad often in the Mermaid’s tap-room, I am told, I’ll keep the sovereign for you ’til you come back, lest he rob you of it, eh?” “Well, My Lady,” said Bickers; “a whole sovereign, My Lady, ain’t often seen out of the quality’s pockets, and the devil might think I’d stole it, My Lady, and try to get it from me. Keep it, My Lady, keep it!” With which the old man, having conquered the colt, set off for the village by a side-path all too well known to his tread. Presently by the spark in his pipe-bowl the two women saw that he had turned back; that, as he came close to them, he clapped his thumb over the glow, and, “My Lady Peggy,” mumbled he sheepishly. “Whatever is’t, Bickers?” cries his mistress in alarm. “Naught to fright ye, My Lady, only it’s been on my mind these many days to tell you as the letter you sent me with to Sir Percy de Bohun—” “Well, well?” Lady Peggy’s words came with a gasp, as the old man dead stops. “Go on Bickers, I say!” the mistress’s foot stamps with a thud on the damp earth.