“Ay! was it even so?” replied Lance. “Nay, then, if they begin the old game so soon again, and send out warrants in the King’s name against his loyal subjects, well fare our stout Knight, say I, who is ready to take them down in their stocking-soles. And if Bridgenorth takes the chase after us, I shall not be sorry to have a knock at him for one.” “Why, the man, bating he is a pestilent Roundhead and Puritan,” said Whitaker, “is no bad neighbour. What has he done to thee, man?” “He has poached on the manor,” answered the keeper. “The devil he has!” replied Whitaker. “Thou must be jesting, Lance. Bridgenorth is neither hunter nor hawker; he hath not so much of honesty in him.” “Ay, but he runs after game you little think of, with his sour, melancholy face, that would scare babes and curdle milk,” answered Lance. “Thou canst not mean the wenches?” said Whitaker; “why, he hath been melancholy mad with moping for the death of his wife. Thou knowest our lady took the child, for fear he should strangle it for putting him in mind of its mother, in some of his tantrums. Under her favour, and among friends, there are many poor Cavaliers’ children, that care would be better bestowed upon--But to thy tale.” “Why, thus it runs,” said Lance. “I think you may have noticed, Master Whitaker, that a certain Mistress Deborah hath manifested a certain favour for a certain person in a certain household.” “For thyself, to wit,” answered Whitaker; “Lance Outram, thou art the vainest coxcomb----” “Coxcomb?” said Lance; “why, ‘twas but last night the whole family saw her, as one would say, fling herself at my head.” “I would she had been a brickbat then, to have broken it, for thy impertinence and conceit,” said the steward. “Well, but do but hearken. The next morning--that is, this very blessed morning--I thought of going to lodge a buck in the park, judging a bit of venison might be wanted in the larder, after yesterday’s wassail; and, as I passed under the nursery window, I did but just look up to see what madam governante was about; and so I saw her, through the casement, whip on her hood and scarf as soon as she had a glimpse of me. Immediately after I saw the still-room door open, and made sure she was coming through the garden, and so over the breach and down to the park; and so, thought I, ‘Aha, Mistress Deb, if you are so ready to dance after my pipe and tabor, I will give you a couranto before you shall come up with me.’ And so I went down Ivy-tod Dingle, where the copse is tangled, and the ground swampy, and round by Haxley-bottom, thinking all the while she was following, and laughing in my sleeve at the round I was giving her.” “You deserved to be ducked for it,” said Whitaker, “for a weather-headed puppy; but what is all this Jack-a-lantern story to Bridgenorth?”