“The next one!”
A startled expression pervaded the landlord’s face as he realized the meaning of Buzzard’s words. He glanced woefully toward the kitchen-door, lest the new wife might have overheard.
“Peace, Buzzard!” Swallow hastened to command, reprovingly. “Would ye raise a man’s dead wife? Learn discretion from thy elders, an thou hop’st to be a married man.”
“Marry, I do not hope,” declared Buzzard, striking the table with his clenched hand. He had no time for matrimony while the cups were overflowing.
There was a quick, imperative knock at the door. The constable, Buzzard and the landlord, all started up in confusion and fear.
“Thieves,” stammered Swallow, faintly, from behind the cask, from which he had dismounted at the first sign of danger. “They are making off with thy tit-bit-of-a-wife, landlord.”
“Be there thieves in the neighbourhood, Master Constable?” whispered the landlord, in consternation.
“Why should his Majesty’s constable be here else?” said Swallow, reaching for a pike, which trembled in his hand as if he had the ague. “The country about’s o’er-run with them; and I warrant ’tis thy new wife’s blue eyes they are after.” He steadied himself with the pike and took a deep draught of ale to steady his courage as well.
Buzzard started to crawl beneath the table, but the wary constable caught him by his belt and made a shield for the nonce of his trembling body.
The landlord’s eyes bulged from their sockets as if a spirit from the nether regions had confronted him. The corners of his mouth, which ascended in harmony with his moon-face, twitched nervously. “Mercy me, sayest thou so?” he asked.