“Mouse-ear! mouse-ear!” growled he. “Some one else’s ear.”
“It was for Lady Oglethorpe.”
“It was,” said her uncle, “a specific, it seems, for whooping-cough. I saw the letter, and knew—”
“Umph! let us hear,” said Sir Philip, evidently with the idea of a tryst in his mind. “No wonder mischief comes of maidens running about at such hours. What next?”
The poor girl struggled on: “I saw Peregrine coming, and hoping he would not see me, I ran into the keep, meaning to get home by the battlements out of his sight, but when I looked down he and Mr. Archfield were fighting. I screamed, but I don’t think they heard me, and I ran down; but I had fastened all the doors, and I was a long time getting out, and by that time Mr. Archfield had dragged him to the vault and thrown him in. He was like one distracted, and said it must be hidden, or it would be the death of his wife and his mother, and what could I do?”
“Is that all the truth?” said Sir Philip sternly. “What brought them there—either of them?”
“Mr. Archfield came to bring me a pattern of sarcenet to match for poor young Madam in London.”
No doubt Sir Philip recollected the petulant anger that this had been forgotten, but he was hardly appeased. “And the other fellow? Why, he was brawling with my nephew Sedley about you the day before!”
“I do not think she was to blame there,” said Dr. Woodford. “The unhappy youth was set against marrying Mistress Browning, and had talked wildly to my sister and me about wedding my niece.”
“But why should she run away as if he had the plague, and set the foolish lads to fight?”