So saying, the old fellow began to smirk and nod, and look as wise and as sly as he could, and then fell to chuckling to himself.
‘The rarest match,’ he presently commenced again. ‘Her mother, having as I said great confidence in me, consulted with me on the matter. “Martin y Vesdras,” says she to me, “Joseffa is marriageable; and here hath come a suitor well-favoured and marvellously well-recommended, and a nobleman to boot. Thou wilt do well, Martin, to see him; nay, hold converse with him, and report to me your opinion.”
‘But I, having no opinions save what the saints send me, went straight to bed and dreamed upon the matter. Never had I a more encouraging vision. Good Master Mariner, as I am a true man, St. Gieronimo himself appeared at the foot of the bed, holding a wedding ring, which he seemed to throw towards me with a very pleasant smile, and so when I woke I actually found the symbol upon the coverlid.’
‘Truly,’ says I, ’ Martin, this was but little short of a miracle.’
‘Master Mariner,’ quoth the simpleton, ‘I rejoice to hear you say so. So indeed think I, and so thinks my mistress, only——’
‘What,’ cries I, ‘does any one refuse to believe the token?’
‘Ay, verily,’ answered the old steward, ‘even Mistress Joseffa herself, who is in noways inclined, at the present time at least, to this wedding, and so she contends, half in mirth half in pretty pettishness—the saints guard her!—that the ring is not a marriage ring, but truly only one of the brass curtain rings which she sayeth dropped upon my nose in the night, and gave me my dream. “Look you, Martin,” says she, “the ring is plain, just like the other curtain rings.”
‘“But look you again, Mistress Joseffa,” says I, “all wedding rings are plain, just like this ring.”
‘But she, sir, in noways put down by my argument, answers, “Truly, but wedding rings are also gold, and this is brass, Master Martin.”’
‘Well,’ says I, ‘how did you answer that consideration? Methought, it pushed you home.’