‘My Tib came with us when we came here. Ay, Tib! purr thy best!’ as he held his fingers over her, and she rubbed her smooth head against him. ‘Can she leap? Baudrons leaps like a horse in the tilt-yard.’ ‘Cannot she! There, my lady pussy, show what thou canst do to please the demoiselle,’ and he held his arms forward with clasped hands, so that the grey cat might spring over them, and Lady Anne cried out with delight. Again and again the performance was repeated, and pussy was induced to dance after a string dangled before her, to roll over and play in apparent ecstasy with a flake of wool, as if it were a mouse, and Watch joined in the game in full amity. Mother Dolly, busy with her distaff, looked on, not displeased, except when she had to guard her spindle from the kitten’s pranks, but she was less happy when the children began to talk. ‘You have seen a tilt-yard?’ ‘Yea, indeed,’ he answered dreamily. ‘The poor squire was hurt--I did not like it! It is gruesome.’ ‘Oh, no! It is a noble sport! I loved our tilt-yard at Bletso. Two knights could gallop at one another in the lists, as if they were out hunting. Oh! to hear the lances ring against the shields made one’s heart leap up! Where was yours?’ Here Dolly interrupted hastily, ‘Hal, lad, gang out to the shed and bring in some more sods of turf. The fire is getting low.’ ‘Here’s a store, mother--I need not go out,’ said Hal, passing to a pile in the corner. ‘It is too dark for thee to see it.’ ‘But where was your castle?’ continued the girl. ‘I am sure you have lived in a castle.’ Insensibly the two children had in addressing one another changed the homely singular pronoun to the more polite, if less grammatical, second person plural. The boy laughed, nodded his head, and said, ‘You are a little witch.’ ‘No great witchcraft to hear that you speak as we do at home in Bedfordshire, not like these northern boors, that might as well be Scots!’ ‘I am not from Bedfordshire,’ said the lad, looking much amused at her perplexity. ‘Who art thou then?’ she cried peremptorily. ‘I? I am Hal the shepherd boy, as I told thee before.’ ‘No shepherd boy are you! Come, tell me true.’ Dolly thought it time to interfere. She heard an imaginary bleat, and ordered Hal out to see what was the matter, hindering the girl by force from running after him, for the snow was coming down in larger flakes than ever. Nevertheless, when her husband was heard outside she threw a cloak over her head and hurried out to speak with him. ‘That maid will make our lad betray himself ere another hour is over their heads!’ ‘Doth she do it wittingly?’ asked the shepherd gravely. ‘Nay, ‘tis no guile, but each child sees that the other is of gentle blood, and women’s wits be sharp and prying, and the maid will never rest till she has wormed out who he is.’ ‘He promised me never to say, nor doth he know.’ ‘Thee! Much do the hests of an old hogherd weigh against the wiles of a young maid!’