"I will bare thee to the buff, driveller, for this. Are you not steeped in wickedness and abomination by evil-consorting with this copper Captain, and this most horrid wood ranger? Hast no eye for thy family; no regard for good name, that you must be strolling o' nights with every pot-guzzler and foul-breathed and cankered cast-off of the wars? I am ashamed of thee. You have been in your cups, I warrant, the live-long night." "Dame, I must speak, now," said Dauntrees. "Thou, thou!" interrupted the hostess, with her face scarlet from anger. "Never in a Christian land should such as thou be permitted to lift thy head before honest people. His Lordship would do but justice to the province to chain thee up in a dark stable, as a bull which may not be trusted at large. Did you not beguile me last night with a base lie? Did you not practice upon me, you faithless, false-hearted coward?" here tears fell from the flashing eyes of the voluble landlady. "Did you not steal that lob, my husband, from me, thief?" "Appearances, dame," replied the Captain, with a grave composure, "if they might be trusted, were certainly to my disfavour last night. But then, I knew that when this matter was all over, I had a most sufficient and excellent reason, which a considerate, virtuous, and tender-hearted woman like yourself would fully approve, when she came to hear it. There was matter in hand of great import and urgency; no revelling, dame--no riot--but brave service, enjoined by his Lordship, and which it was his Lordship's most earnest desire should be committed in part to thy husband. It was an action of pith and bravery he had on hand; and his Lordship being well aware, dame, that Garret's wife was a woman of a loving heart, and gentle withal in her nature, and not fitted to endure the wringing of her affection by such a trial as the adventure imposed upon Garret, he charged me to make some light pretext for withdrawing thy husband from thine eye, which, by fraud, I confess, I did, and am now--since Garret hath worthily achieved his most perilous duty--here to avow my own treachery. There is promotion and great advantage at hand for this which will set up thy head, dame, the highest amongst them that wear hoods." "We have barely escaped with our lives, Mistress Dorothy," said Weasel, in a whining accent of deprecation; "we should be made much of and praised for our duty, not be set upon with taunts and foul rebukes; and when you know all, wife, you will be sorry for this wounding of our good name." "This is but another trick," said the landlady. "Nay, good mistress," interrupted the Captain, "I will agree to be gibbeted by thine own fair hand, if I do not satisfy thee that in this adventure we are deserving of all applause. The Lieutenant at the fort, doubtless, told thee that we were absent last night on special duty at his Lordship's command?"