“Volk a horseback coming down park,” said the breathless messenger.
Sir Gilbert started up in alarm.
“How many? What kind? How far off?”
“Ten or fifteen, mayhap. Steel-caps, speards, and a penance.”
The knight wrung his hands, and rushed to the window to reconnoitre. It was pitiful to see his distress as he whimpered,—
“Alack! alack! ‘Tis a knight and his following. Pestilence seize them! What seek they here? Certes some Lord of the Court,—and to see me in this plight—with darned hose! Bar the shutters! Say the knight and lady are at court—at their castle in the north—in-Flanders. Plague on them! Would I were dead!”
The hind moved to depart, scratching his head, with a confused notion as to his general orders.
“Stay, good fellow,” the lady Alice said, rising from her seat. She was a comely English matron, well grown, with blue eyes and golden hair,—yet fair to look on; though with a face harder in expression than it doubtless had once been, for she had been sorely tried in her married lifetime.
“Shame on you, Sir Gilbert Falstaff, to teach your hinds such base artifices! How can you hope they will serve you truly? Bid them welcome, Jankin, to such poor cheer as we can give them. Why, man! there is not an inn within eight leagues.”
“Jankin, go not. Art thou mad, woman? Art thou mad? Thou with nothing but a cloth kirtle, and I in this miserable——But thou go to! Thou art a true trader’s daughter.”