She shrank back at my words, and it appeared as if a hand moved suddenly under the cloak of the man who lay feigning sleep in the room, and the quick movement was as if he had clutched the haft of a dagger. I was never a brawler or blusterer, and least of all did I wish to worry these poor people; but the times were such that a man's safety lay chiefly in himself, for the writ of the King ran weak in the outlying districts. The whole business, too, was so strange that I was determined to fathom it; and, unbuckling my sword, I placed it on a table so as to be ready on the instant, and then, seating myself on a stool beside it, said somewhat sharply, 'Enough, my girl; get me some wine and take out some to my servant. This will pay for it,' and I rang a fat crown piece on the table. 'Hurry your father if you can, and I will be gone the moment my horse is shod.' My tone was one not to be denied, and taking up the money she turned to a cupboard and with shaking fingers drew a bottle therefrom and placed it before me. Filling a cup I asked her to bear it out to Jacques, and then leaning back against the wall took a pull at my own goblet, and judge of my surprise when I found I was tasting nothing short of d'Arbois of the '92 vintage! As I sipped my wine, and speculated how it came there, the girl came back, and seeing that matters were as before began to attend to her cooking. Whatever she had said to the smith apparently had the effect of rousing him to greater activity, for through the open door I heard the puffing of his bellows, and very soon came the clang, clang of his hammer as he beat out a shoe. It was getting dark now within the room, over which the flames of the fire occasionally blazed up and cast a fitful and uncertain light. Outside, however, there was a moon; and, in a few minutes at the most, my horse would be shod and I would have to continue my journey without having discovered what this little mystery meant. I could not help being a little amused at the manner in which my bashful friend, whose face was so well covered up, kept himself a prisoner in his corner. But at this moment the girl's cooking was finished, and the savoury odour of it was apparently more than he could endure, for he suddenly sprang to his feet exclaiming, '_Nom du diable!_ I am sick of this, and hungry as a wolf. Give me my supper, Marie, and if he wants to take me let him do so if he can; he will have to fight an old soldier first.' As he spoke I distinctly saw his hand indicate me, and with an alarmed cry the girl sprang between us. It flashed upon me that my gentleman was, after all, only some one who was wanted, and that he regarded me with as much apprehension as I had regarded him with caution. 'Tush!' I said, 'you good people make a great fuss over nothing. I certainly do not want to take you, my man, and neither you nor your little sweetheart here need be in the least alarmed.' I had hardly finished speaking when he rushed forward.