ied Gerard.

"Alack, have you found me out at last?"

"Yes, indeed. Is this another custom?"

"Nay, not to take them unbidden: but at night we aye question
travellers, are they for linen washed. So I came into you, but you were
both sound. Then said I to the little mistress, 'La! where is the sense
of waking wearied men, t'ask them is Charles the Great dead, and would
they liever carry foul linen or clean, especially this one with a skin
like cream? 'And so he has, I declare,' said the young mistress."

"That was me," remarked Denys, with the air of a commentator.

"Guess once more, and you'll hit the mark."

"Notice him not, Marion, he is an impudent fellow; and I am sure we
cannot be grateful enough for your goodness, and I am sorry I ever
refused you--anything you fancied you should like."

"Oh, are ye there," said l'espiegle. "I take that to mean you would
fain brush the morning dew off, as your bashful companion calls it; well
then, excuse me, 'tis customary, but not prudent. I decline. Quits with
you, lad."

"Stop! stop!" cried Denys, as she was making off victorious, "I am
curious to know how many, of ye were here last night a-feasting your
eyes on us twain.

"'Twas so satisfactory a feast as we weren't half a minute over't. Who?
why the big mistress, the little mistress, Janet, and me, and the whole
posse comitatus, on tiptoe. We mostly make our rounds the last thing,
not to get burned down; and in prodigious numbers. Somehow that maketh
us bolder, especially where archers lie scattered about."

"Why did not you tell me? I'd have lain awake."

"Beau sire, the saying goes that the good and the ill are all one while
their lids are closed. So we said, 'Here is one who will serve God best
asleep, Break not his rest!'"

"She is funny," said Gerard dictatorially.

"I must be either that or knavish."

"How so?"

"Because 'The Three Fish' pay me to be funny. You will eat before you
part? Good! then I'll go see the meat be fit for such worshipful teeth."

"Denys!"

"What is your will?"

"I wish that was a great boy, and going along with us, to keep us
cheery."

"So do not I. But I wish it was going along with us as it is."

"Now Heaven forefend! A fine fool you would make of yourself."

They broke their fast, settled their score, and said farewell. Then
it was they found that Marion had not exaggerated the "custom of the
country." The three principal women took and kissed them right heartily,