“What have we here,” cries he, “but a pair o’ lovers coming? and what i’ my hand but a lover’s hourglass? Sure the stars of heav’n must have a hand in this conjuncture—and only thirteen pence, my pretty fellow, for a glass that will tell the weather i’ your sweetheart’s face, and help make it fine.” There were many country fellows with their maids in the crowd, that turned their heads at this address; and as usual the women began. “Tis Joan o’ the Tor!” “Joan’s picked up wi’ a sweetheart—tee-hee!—an’ us reckoned her’d forsworn mankind!” “Who is he?” “Some furriner, sure: that likes garlic.” “He’s bought her no ribbons yet.” “How should he, poor lad; that can find no garments upon her to fasten ’em to?” And so on, with a deal of spiteful laughter. Some of these sayings were half truth, no doubt: but the truthfullest word may be infelix. So noting a dark flush on Joan’s cheek, I thought to end the scene by taking the Cheap Jack’s mirror on the spot, to stop his tongue, and then drawing her away. But in this I was a moment too late; for just as I reached up my hand with the thirteen pence, and the grinning fellow on the platform bent forward with his mirror, I heard a coarser jest, a rush in the crowd, and two heads go _crack!_ together like eggs. ’Twas two of Joan’s tormentors she had taken by the hair and served so: and dropping them the next instant had caught the Cheap Jack’s beard, as you might a bell rope, and wrench’d him head-foremost off his stand, my thirteen pence flying far and wide. Plump he fell into the crowd, that scatter’d on all hands as Joan pummelled him: and _whack, whack!_ fell the blows on the poor idiot’s face, who scream’d for mercy, as though Judgment Day were come. No one, for the minute, dared to step between them: and presently Joan looking up, with arm raised for another buffet, spied a poor Astrologer close by, in a red and yellow gown, that had been reading fortunes in a tub of black water beside him, but was now broken off, dismayed at the hubbub. To this tub she dragged the Cheap Jack and sent him into it with a round souse. The black water splashed right and left over the crowd. Then, her wrath sated, Joan faced the rest, with hands on hips, and waited for them to come on. Not a word had she spoken, from first to last: but stood now with hot cheeks and bosom heaving. Then, finding none to take up her challenge, she strode out through the folk, and I after her, with the mirror in my hand; while the Cheap Jack picked himself out of the tub, whining, and the Astrologer wip’d his long white beard and soil’d robe.