“Yes. Give him of the best, poor fellow, while he’s with us, for he goes from us to prison, and mayhap to worse.”
“What worse, mother?” demanded Betty, pausing as she shook out the folds of the Antwerp damask napkin, and turning her face toward her mother, whose quick eye marked its sudden pallor.
“Pho, child! I did but shoot at random; there’s no harm coming to the man that I know of. Here, now, here’s the little bird done to a turn, and some manchets of wheat bread, and a cup of honey, and the tankard. That’s enough for any man’s breakfast, be he sick or well. What’s that, now?”
“Just a bit of mayflower, mother, that I found yesterday in the nook south the hill, you know.”
“Yes, yes, but—well, have thine own way, poppet,—thou ’rt a good child.”
And the tray, decorated with a little silver cup holding the two or three reckless sprigs of epigæa, which had ventured before their time into a world not yet ready for them, was carried into the fore-room, where Sir Christopher stood at the window impatiently considering his swollen and discolored hands from which he had removed the bandages.
Before we attend to him, however, let us here note that the Epigæa repens still blooms in Plymouth so early, that by May-day it is gone; and it is not, and never was, and never will be an arbutus, although a world which chooses to say “commence” instead of “begin,” and “locate” instead of “build,” insists upon calling it so, and probably will so insist as long as time endures.
“Ah! Good-morrow, little maid!” exclaimed the knight, a smile replacing the scowl of vexation. “I have not seen you before. Are you Master Alden’s daughter?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Betty, placing her tray upon the table, and then turning to make her little curtsy, for Betty knew her manners as well as any young gentlewoman alive. “Mother was over-busy this morning to attend you, and so sent me with your breakfast.”