"Please! There's little o' pleasin' in bein' waked up at this hour."
"No, no. Quite true. But listen, just listen."
"I'll do no such a thing. What do you want, Master Lee?"
"A horse."
"I'll see Sheppard has his horsewhip in nice trim for you next you come this way," irately retorted she; "an' be you ten times master o' Nether Hall."
Stars and garters.
"Nay; for that he need be at no trouble," laughed Lee, hitting a swish in the air with a short riding-whip he carried in his other hand. "I've got my own with me, as luck had it. And if not, 'twould have mattered little enough, for 'tis rarely Stars and Garters needs whip nor spur either."
"Stars and Garters!" gasped Mistress Sheppard.
"Ay, 'tis her I'll take, with your good leave," calmly returned Lawrence.
Now Stars and Garters was the name distinguishing the pride of the King's Arms, and of her mistress's heart, a beautiful black mare, marked with a white star on her left breast, and a curious ring of white hair below the left knee, whose match for docility and fleetness of foot was not to be met with in all the country side; and the audacity of Lee's proposition took Mistress Sheppard's breath away. "Stars and Garters!" ironically ejaculated she, when at last she recovered it. "What next, cuther?"