“Good maid!” said her mistress, when she saw that the tale was finished. “Now sleep thou, for I would not cut off a young maid from her rest. I can sleep belike, or lie awake, as it please the saints.”
All was silence after that for half-an-hour. Amphillis had just dropped asleep, when she was roused again by a low sound, of what nature she knew not at first. Then she was suddenly conscious that the porter’s watch-dog, Colle, was keeping up a low, uneasy growl beneath the window, and that somebody was trying to hush him. Amphillis lay and listened, wondering whether it were some further nonsense of Agatha’s manufacture. Then came the sound of angry words and hurrying feet, and a woman’s shrill scream.
“What ado is there?” asked the Countess. “Draw back the curtain, Phyllis, and see.”
Amphillis sprang up, ran lightly with bare feet across the chamber, and drew back the curtain. The full harvest moon was shining into the inner court, and she discerned eight black shadows, all mixed together in what was evidently a struggle of some kind, the only one distinguishable being that of Colle, who was as busy and excited as any of the group. At length she saw one of the shadows get free from the others, and speed rapidly to the wall, pursued by the dog, which, however, could not prevent his escape over the wall. The other shadows had a further short scuffle, at the end of which two seemed to be driven into the outer yard by the five, and Amphillis lost sight of them. She told her mistress what she saw.
“Some drunken brawl amongst the retainers, most like,” said the Countess. “Come back to thy bed, maid; ’tis no concern of thine.”
Amphillis obeyed, and silence fell upon the house. The next thing of which she was conscious was Perrote’s entrance in the morning.
“What caused yon bruit in the night?” asked the Countess, as Amphillis was dressing her hair.
“Dame,” said Perrote, “it was an attack upon the house.”
“An attack?” The Countess turned suddenly round, drawing her hair out of her tirewoman’s hands. “After what fashion? thieves? robbers? foes? Come, tell me all about it.”
“I scantly know, Dame, how far I may lightly tell,” said Perrote, uneasily. “It were better to await Sir Godfrey’s return, ere much be said thereanentis.”