“Hold thy prating tongue,” cried Mistress Anne; “and if I find thee talking about my affairs, girl, or what thou seest, Sir Thomas shall know.”
Hastily tying on hat and cloak, she started for Mother Goodhugh’s, Polly, her apple-faced little maid, making a grimace as she left the room.
“I shall talk as much as I like,” said the girl, giving her head a toss; “mighty madam, as you be. Tell Sir Thomas, and I’ll tell what I see going on from this window, down in the nut-stubbs. Ha, ha, ha! how my lady did stare.”
Mistress Anne lost no time in making her way across the fields and through the woods, to Mother Goodhugh’s; finding the old woman seated at her door, watching her bees as they flew in and out from the straw-hives in her garden-patch.
“Ah, my dearie,” she exclaimed; “you be come again?”
“Yes, mother,” cried Anne, trying, now to keep calm and cool. “What is this I hear about Captain Carr?”
“Captain Carr be not for thee,” cried the old woman, firing up; “he be a murderer—he has slain my best old friend, and if Sir Thomas, thy father, does not have him hung, he be no true man.”
“Softly,” said Mistress Anne; “softly, mother.”
“Nay, I will go softly no more. But of thine own affairs, dearie, Captain Gil Carr is cursed, with all he does. My words have brought him evil already, and thee good. Sir Mark, the handsome stranger, is to wed my handsome mistress. I sent him thee to-day.”
“You sent him?”