CHAPTER XIX.
"STARS AND GARTERS."
The inmates of the King's Arms had been in bed and asleep full four hours, and profound silence reigned throughout its precincts, when, a few moments after the gatehouse clock had chimed one, a loud rattling on the panes of Mistress Sheppard's bedchamber window roused her from uneasy dreams.
"Cuther! what a night!" ejaculated she, sitting up and listening to the sound as it fell again with increased violence. "There's hail for you! Big as pebble stones, be sure."
A third shower made it clear beyond all question that pebble-stones they were; and rising in haste, she opened a pane of the lattice and looked out.
"Is that you, Mistress Sheppard?" said a muffled voice immediately beneath, as the billowy outlines of her nightcap broke dazzling white amid the surrounding darkness upon the vision of the speaker.
"And is that you, Master Lee?" sharply replied the mistress of the hostelry, as her nocturnal visitor, turning the light of the dark lantern he carried full upon the casement, revealed at the same time his own form and features. "What do you want?" she went on in dudgeon, "coming here at this time o' night, bringin' honest folks' hearts into their mouths, and disturbin' their rest?"
"Yes, yes," hastily assented Lee; "'tis very late, I grant you—"
"Early, I suppose you mean," fumed Mistress Sheppard, clutching the pane, to snap it to again. "And let me tell you—"
"Oh, yes! whatever you please, if—"