“At a word from you, good youth! Nay, at a word from me! Did you speak of me in your letter to her father?”
“Nay!” said I.
“You did well. And therefore it was that I wrote, for I knew she would move heaven and earth and the Maid or she would come when she heard of another lass being in your company. Nay, trust me, we women understand each other, and she would ask the Maid, who lodged here with us, what manner of lass I was to look upon, and the Maid’s answer would bring her.”
“You have been kind,” I said. “And to you and the saints I owe it that I yet live to carry a sore heart and be tormented with your ill tongue.”
“And had you heard that a fair young knight, and renowned in arms, lay sick at your lady’s house, she nursing him, would you not have cast about for ways of coming to her?”
To this I answered nothing, but, with a very sour countenance, was rising to go, when my name was called in the street.
Looking down, I saw my master, who doffed his cap to the daughter of the house, and begging leave to come up, fastened his horse’s bridle to the ring in the wall, by the door.
Up he came, whom Charlotte welcomed very demurely, and so left us, saying that she must go about her household business; but as she departed she cast a look back at me, making a “moue,” as the French say, with her red lips.
“Well, my son,” cried my master, taking my hand, “why so pale? Sure thou hast had a sore bout, but thou art mending.”
I could but stammer my lady’s name—