"Like him not!--And what reason have I to like him, I trow?" answered Gillian. "Is it because he seduced my simplicity to let him into the castle of the Garde Doloureuse-ay, oftener than once or twice either,-when he was disguised as a pedlar, and told him all the secrets of the family, and how the boy Damian, and the girl Eveline, were dying of love with each other, but had not courage to say a word of it, for fear of the Constable, though he were a thousand miles off?-You seem concerned, worthy sir--may I offer your reverend worship a trifling sup from my bottle, which is sovereign for _tremor cordis_, and fits of the spleen?" "No, no," ejaculated De Lacy--"I was but grieved with the shooting of an old wound. But, dame, I warrant me this Damian and Eveline, as you call them, became better, closer friends, in time?" "They?--not they indeed, poor simpletons!" answered the dame; "they wanted some wise counsellor to go between and advise them. For, look you, sir, if old Hugo be dead, as is most like, it were more natural that his bride and his nephew should inherit his lands, than this same Randal who is but a distant kinsman, and a foresworn caitiff to boot.--Would you think it, reverend pilgrim, after the mountains of gold he promised me?--when the castle was taken, and he saw I could serve him no more, he called me old beldame, and spoke of the beadle and the cucking-stool.--Yes, reverend sir, old beldame and cucking-stool were his best words, when he knew I had no one to take my part, save old Raoul, who cannot take his own. But if grim old Hugh bring back his weatherbeaten carcass from Palestine, and have but half the devil in him which he had when he was fool enough to go away, Saint Mary, but I will do his kinsman's office to him!" There was a pause when she had done speaking. "Thou say'st," at length exclaimed the Constable, "that Damian de Lacy and Eveline love each other, yet are unconscious of guilt or falsehood, or ingratitude to me--I would say, to their relative in Palestine!" "Love, sir!--in troth and so it is--they do love each other," said Gillian; "but it is like angels--or like lambs--or like fools, if you will; for they would never so much as have spoken together, but for a prank of that same Randal Lacy's." "How!" demanded the Constable--"a prank of Randal's?--What motive had he that these two should meet?"