The guests at length dispersing, they all rode off as well as their muddled heads would let them, to their respective homes; the squire, as was his custom, locked the door himself, and saw every light in the house out before he retired himself. At length he gained his chamber, and all was still in Graspacre Hall. The amorous squire, chuckling at his luck as he thought of the fair lass in the green chamber, grew too impatient to wait till the proposed hour of midnight, and leaving his candle on his own table, took off his shoes, and softly approached the casket, that he deemed contained his precious jewel. Applying the key, he opened the door very gently, and cautiously approaching the side of the bed, said in a whisper towards the pillow, “Don’t be alarmed Gwenny, my dear, ’tis I, the squire; fear nothing my girl, this will be the making of your fortune my dear; and if you are as kind and loving as I could wish you to be, you may soon become the second Mrs. Graspacre.” Hearing no reply, he considered that according to the old adage, _silence gives consent_, and proceeded to bend his face down to kiss the fair one, when a severe bounce inflicted by a toss of his _incognita’s_ snout, knocked him backwards off the bed to the floor, and set his nose a-bleeding. After recovering himself a little, though labouring under the delusion that the blow had been struck by the hand of a fair maiden, he exclaimed in an under tone, “You little vixen, how dare you treat me in this manner?” Proceeding more roughly again towards the bed, he was completely horror-struck at the loud bray which the terrified ass sent forth; while the poor animal, after a hard struggle, liberating her limbs, struck him a severe blow on the forehead with her hoof, and getting off the bed, made a terrible clatter with her shod feet over the boards of the room. The unfortunate squire, although hitherto a loud decrier of superstition, now felt a thrill of the utmost horror pervade him, while he deemed himself ensnared by the enemy of man, as the punishment of his guilty intentions; and after a clamorous outcry fell senseless on the floor.