would cause love."

On this he wept again, but said that I was a good old man, and that on his return to Mallow he would send me a gift; and so he did—a pair o' silk hose, such as my lady and the Queen do wear; but being mindful of my station, I laid them aside for the sake o' th' poor lad, and yesterday Marian did bring them to me, with her ten fingers through as many moth-holes. Whereupon I was minded o' th' text concerning that we lay not up treasures where moth and rust do corrupt, and at my behest Marian read me the whole of that chapter. But to return to bare facts.

It was on a certain night in March that there occurred the conversation which was the cause of this narrative. There had been news of the return of one Lord Denbeigh to Warwickshire—by report as wild a cavalier as ever fought, and a godless body to boot. Marian, who, as I have said, had always a certain knack for ghost stories and the like, froze me with her accounts o' this wild lord's doings. Quoth she:

"Fire-brace is a suiting name for him, inasmuch as 'tis a family name, and he a fire-brand to peace wheresome'er he shall go."

"Peace—peace thyself!" quoth I, hearing my lady's foot along the hall. And, o' my word, Marian had but just ceased, and given her attention to the fire, when in clatters my lady, with her riding-whip stuck in her glove, and her blood-hound Hearn in a leash. She was much wrought, either with riding or rage, for there was a quick red in her cheek, and she had set her red lips until they were white. Then took she the hound between her knees, and plucked off her gloves. Here I did find it my duty to speak.

"My lady," cried I, "'tis not in your mind to baste the dog?"

"Ay, that it is," quoth she, and her lips went tighter, and she jerked at her glove.

Then said I, "How if he leap at thy throat?" And she answered, "Nay, he knows better;" and with that she gripped his collar, and let swing her whip. Then did I bid Marian that she leave the room. As for me, it was my duty to stay, though, as I have given an oath to tell but the truth in this narrative, I must confess that I was in a sweat from head to foot with fear.

But the great hound crouched as though he knew he got but what he deserved, and when my lady had given him ten or twenty lashes she flung wide the door, and said she, "Get thee gone, coward! Go fare as fares the poor beggar thou sought'st to bite!" and the hound slunk out. Then turned my mistress to me, and—"Butter," saith she, "yon beast sought to bite an old beggar as we came through the park, so I whipped him. But for naught save cruelty or disobedience will I ever whip a dog; so, Butter, the next time that thou seest me about to lash one, keep thy counsel." (This was the harshest that my lady e'er spoke, either to me or to Marian.) Then went she to the door and called Marian.

"Come, nurse," quoth she, "I am a-weary. Fling me some skins on the settle, and I will lie down, and thou shalt card out my locks with thy fingers." So we heaped the settle with the skins o' white bears, and thereon my lady cast herself, like a flower blown down upon a snow-bank; and by-and-by, what with the warmth and Marian's strokings, she fell into a deep sleep. But we two sate and gazed on her.

She was all clad in a tight riding-dress of green velour cloth, and her white face seemed to come from the close collar like a white lily from its sheath. She was e'er flower-like, asleep or waking, as I have said, and her pretty head was sleek and yellow, like a butterfly's wing. She was so sound that it appeared to me and Marian as though one longer breath might transform the mimicry into the actual thing—death. But by-and-by awe fell from us, as it doth ever fall, even in the presence of that which hath awed us, and my wife and I did return to our discourse concerning my Lord Denbeigh.

Quoth I to Marian, "But, wife, may not malice invent these tales?"

"Nay, nay," said she, shaking her head; "as bloody a rogue as ever lived—as bloody a rogue as ever lived. They do say as how he'll set a whole tavern in a broil ere he be entered in for three minutes."

"But," quoth I, "may he not be provoked?"

"Nay, I tell thee," said she; "but he'll jump at a body's head, and cleave 't open ere a body can say 'Jesus.'"

At this I said, firmly, "I doubt not but what the poor man is most surely maligned." Whereupon Mistress Butter did wax exceeding wroth.

"Why wilt thou e'er be seeking to plead the cause o' villains?" cried she. "First that bloody beast o' my lady's, now this bloody villain o' th' devil's. I do wonder at thee, Anthony Butter." Whereat I did put in that I sometimes wondered at myself.

"For why?" quoth she.

"Why, that I ever married to be worded by a wench," said I. And at this I am most entirely sure that she would have cast her joint-stool at me, had she not been sitting on 't, and my lady's head against her knee. So she called me a "zany," and then after a little a "toad," but went on stroking my lady's hair.

And, by-and-by, back we come to his lordship.

"'Tis not alone his bloody tricks and murderous ways," quoth my wife, "that causes all Christian folk to abhor him, but he consorts with no other women than drabs and callets. Dost excuse that?"

"Nay," said I, with sufficient gravity, "then is this earl no longer a man, but a swine, and not fit for men's discussion, much less that of women."

At this reproof I saw anger again in her eye, but she was so pleased withal at having got me to call Lord Denbeigh a swine that she forebore any further personal affront.

"And yet," she went on, "they do say he be as fine a man as a wench will walk through the rain to glimpse at, and a brave and a learned; but that he wed a Spanish maid, and she betrayed him, and so he hath vowed to hate women, one and all."

"Hast thou seen him?"

"Nay, but I've had him itemized to me by the wife o' Humfrey Lemon. A blue eye, a hooked nose, a—"

"Well, well, wife," quoth I, "if a blue eye and a hooked nose be as bad signs in a man as they be in a horse, methinks this thy villain is a very round villain."

"And so he is," affirmed she.

"Yet," said I, "there is somewhere in me a something that doth pity him."

"By my troth!" cried my wife. "I do believe, Master Butter, that thou'dst pity the Devil's wife in childbirth."

"Ay, that I would!" I made answer, with a great calmness, for I saw that she sought to rouse my spleen.

"Well, do not bellow," blurted she, "for my mistress is as sound as a gold-piece."

Then quoth my lady, a-rising up on her elbow,

"Nay, that she is not. And, moreover, she would hear all the stories concerning this bad and bloody Lord of Denbeigh!"

II.

When Marian heard my lady so speak, methought she would have swooned in verity; for she knew my lady's contempt for gossip. E'en for the first time in all her life, Marian could not find a word to her tongue.

"La! my lady," said she, and then stopped and was silent. My lady laughed at her, with her deep eyes; but as was her wont, her mouth was wondrous solemn.

"Ay, nurse," quoth she, "thou thought'st me safe i' th' Land o' Nod, but one hath ears to hear there as elsewhere." Then she reaches out one hand and plays with Marian's ruff. "Go to, nurse," says she. "Dost thou not see I am even i' th' same case with thyself? I too would gossip a little. Come, word it—word it!"

So Marian told her all that she had heard, together with