"Giles Dauber! what keeps ye so long there a-gossiping?" shouted a shrill voice from above. It was the vocal substitute of Mistress Dauber, who, resolutely determined not to budge at her husband's bidding, had, as she lay, listened, but to little purpose. Finding it was no everyday guest, she crept to the ladder-head and gave ear for a while; but soon discovering it to be an unthrifty sort of intercourse that was going on, not likely to bring either gain or good-will to the house, and fearing that Giles might fall into some snare from his ready-mouthed opinions regarding the unsettled temper and aspect of the time, she thought fit to break abruptly on the discourse ere it should lead to some dangerous or forbidden subject. He had, however, hit upon a favourite topic, in addition to which, he was now evidently loth to leave his guest ere he had learnt the nature of his errand to these parts. An "o'er-sea pilgrim," as they were generally styled, was too choice an arrival for a petty hostel—especially in those times, when newspapers and posts were not circulating daily and hourly through the land—to let slip an opportunity of inquiring about the king of Scotland, as Robert Bruce was then called, or about his majesty, the Sultan Solyman—two personages who were very frequently confounded with each other in mine host's political hemisphere, and whose realms formed the great pandemonium whence issued all that was dire and disastrous to plague and perplex unhappy England.
"To bed! to bed!—Thou art ready enough to rise when thou art not bidden. To bed, I say!" angrily shouted the disturbed Benedict.
"Hast thou a wife?" sternly inquired the pilgrim.
"A wife!—marry have I!" exclaimed Giles; "and here she comes."
Finding there was no likelihood of a speedy termination to this interview, our hostess of the Maypole conceived it to be a matter of duty that she should at least take her full share in the discussions and disclosures that might ensue. For this purpose she descended, making a deep acknowledgment to the generally supposed sanctity of the pilgrim's vocation. So much occupied, however, did he appear by other concernments that he scarcely
noticed her approach, but continued to pass with hasty and irregular steps across the chamber.
"By what quality or appearance may Sir Osmund Neville be distinguished?" he abruptly inquired.
"A right goodly person, and a brave gentleman! He gave me a sousing kiss, and a pair of mittens to boot, the last choosing of knights to the parliament," said the Dame.
"Hold thy tongue, Madge!" angrily exclaimed Giles. "Good father, heed not a woman; they are caught by the lip and the fist, like my lord's trencher-man. This Sir Osmund is both lean and ill-favoured. I wonder what the Lady Mabel saw above his shoe to wed with an ugly toad spawned i' the Welsh marshes. Had ye seen her first husband, Sir William Bradshaigh—rest his soul! he was killed in the wars—you would have marvelled that she drunk the scum after the broth."
"Lady Mabel and Sir Osmund are now at Haigh?" cautiously inquired the palmer.