The youth sank on one knee, and taking the lady's hand, pressed it to his lips. "Believe me, lady," he said, "the delight I experience in serving one so fair and exquisite, a thousand times o'erpays the duty."
"Why, gad a mercy," said the old knight, "thou art a high-flown champion, methinks. Nevertheless, lad, we are indebted to thee in more than we can either dilate on, or thou listen to with patience fasting. Let us return to the house, my masters all.
"Come Sir Knight of the quarter-staff," he continued, "'fore gad, we'll not part with thee till we have learnt how to do thee good service.
"Yet stay," he said, as he was preparing to mount, and whilst steadily regarding the youth, "art not of the town here? Have I not seen thy goodly visage somewhere in Stratford? Troth have I. Why man, thou art the son of my respected neighbour, the wool-comber in Henley Street—John Shakespeare."
"His eldest son, an it so please ye," said the youth, blushing.
"'Fore Heaven, and so thou art!" said Sir Hugh. "And what, good Philip?—is not thy name Philip?"
"William," said the youth.
"And what good wind, then, good William Shakespeare, hath blown thee so opportunely this morning to our neighbourhood?"
"Marry, the same wind, good Sir Hugh," said a tall, dark-looking man, dressed in the habiliments of a forester, and accompanied by a companion quite as ill-favoured as himself, and who at this moment thrust himself into the circle: "the same ill wind, Sir Hugh, that makes him haunt every wood and dell in the county."
This interruption somewhat startled the party. Sir Hugh turned and looked at him with surprise, whilst the object of the remark of the forester in an instant confronted the man. "Thou art an insolent caitiff," he said, "thus to speak of one of whom thou knowest nothing."