"Mr. Belton," said the widow, "what is Barney Bates doing there—holding that horse?"
"He is esquire to Richard Plantagenet," said Toney. "Each one of those boys is esquire to a gallant knight, and holds his horse until the champion is ready to mount."
"Barney is a bad boy," said the widow.
"Indeed, he is a bad boy!" said Rosabel.
"The only harm I ever knew Barney to do," said Toney, "was to turn a tavern-keeper's sign upside down, and when Boniface came out in the morning, he beheld an Irishman standing on his head before the door trying to read the letters which were inverted."
"He tied bells to my horse's tail," said the widow.
"He did worse than that," said Rosabel.
"What was it?" said Toney.
"Why," said Rosabel, "some pious people were engaged in holding a prayer-meeting, and he tied a bundle of firecrackers behind an unlucky cur and applied a torch."