“Nay, but I fear me he groweth too fast for his strength,” answered his mother.
“Then give him more meat and drink,” was the rather contemptuous reply. “The lad is as strong as a horse: he is only a trifle lazy. He lacketh but stirring up with a poker.”
“Send us the poker,” said his father, laughing.
“I am not an ironmonger,” retorted the Doctor, again with the same grim smile. “But the boy is all right; women be alway looking out for trouble and taking thought.”
“But I count you know a mother’s fears,” answered Custance calmly.
“How should I?” said he. “I was never a woman, let alone a mother. I know all women be fools, saving a handful, of whom Isoult Avery, at Bradmond yonder, is queen.”
Mr Anthony Tremayne laughed heartily. His wife merely replied as quietly as before. “So be it, Doctor. I suppose men do fall sick at times, and then they use not to think so for a little while at the least.”
“Well, I said not you were not in the handful,” said he, smiling again.
“All that you yourself do know make the handful, I count,” said Tremayne. “Ah! Doctor, your bark did alway pass your bite. But who goeth yonder? Come within!”
The door opened in answer to his call, and disclosed a good-looking man in the prime of life, whose dark hair and beard were particularly luxuriant in growth.