"Nay, master, an' ye know not, more's the pity if it be not to your honour."
"To me, sayest thou?"
"They ha' so settled it, belike; and I thought, if it would please ye, to order me new boots and a coat for the wedding."
"Peace!—where gattest thou the news?"
"At the smithy. I was but just getting the mare shoed, and a tooth hammered into the garden rake."
"It is wondrous strange!" replied Anthony, musing; "but women are of a subtle and unsearchable temper. She did appoint me a month's abstinence. Sure enough, the feast thou hast named happeneth on the very day of my release. She hath devised this plot for my surprise! Excellent!—and so the rumour hath gotten abroad? Now, o' my troth, but I like her the better for't. Go to; a new suit, with yellow trimmings, and hose of the like colour, shall be thine: thou shalt be chief servitor, too, at my wedding."
Anthony seemed raving wild with delight. He resolved that the jade should know of his intelligence, and he would attack the citadel by a counterplot of a most rare and excellent device. To this end he resolved on going to the hall the night preceding his appointment; in the meantime diligently maturing his scheme for the surprise and delight of the cunning maiden.
With the evening of an unusually long and tedious day, whose minutes had been spun to hours, and these hours into ages, did Master Anthony Hardcastle, accompanied by his servant, set forth on this perilous exploit. Upon a rich and comely suit, consisting of a light blue embroidered vest, and a rich coat of peach-coloured velvet, with bag-wig and ruffles, was thrown a dark cloak, partly intended as a disguise, and partly to screen his gay habiliments from dust and pollution.
They passed slowly on for an hour or two, dropping down to the little wicket as aforetime, above which the crows were again ready with the usual inquiries. The squires being left with the steeds, Master Anthony once more scrambled over the garden hedge, and sustained his person in a becoming attitude against the pear-tree whence he had so successfully attacked and carried the citadel on his former visit. He now beheld, with wonder, lights dancing about in the house, frisking and frolicking through the long casements like so many jack-o'-lanterns. Indeed, the greater part of the mansion seemed all a-blaze, and of an appalling and suspicious brightness. Sounds, moreover, of mirth and revelry approached his ear. He would instantly have proceeded to ascertain the cause of this inauspicious merry-making had not Kate's injunction kept him aloof. The noise of minstrelsy was now heard—symptoms of the marriage-feast and the banquet. More than once he suspected some witchery, some delusion of the enemy to beguile him by enchantments. However, he resolved to be quiet; and, for the purpose of a more extended vision, he climbed, or rather stepped into, the low huge fork of the tree. From this tower of observation he kept a wary eye, more particularly towards the window whence the billet was thrown, expecting to behold some token of his mistress's presence. But this chamber seemed to be the dullest and darkest in the whole house; not a ray was visible. It seemed shut out, impervious to the gladness which irradiated the bosom of its neighbours.
A white cur now came snarling about the bushes; then, cautiously smelling his way to the tree, suddenly set up a yell so deafening and continuous that he roused some of the revellers within. Two men staggered from the house, evidently a little the worse in their articulation by reason of the potations they had taken.