'Was there ever such a wench?' I said to myself, stamping my foot in anger.
Last of all Nell brought to the window the three bottles of Canary wine, for which I had paid so dear.
'What is this?' she cried, with her head at the side in her masterful cock-sparrow way. 'What is this? Wine, wine of Canary—rotten water rather, I warrant, to be sold in a booth at a fair? At any rate, wine is not good for boys,' she added, 'and such drabbled stuff is not for the drinking of a lady—wouldst thou like it, Spurheel?'
She ducked in, thinking that I was about to throw something more at her—which, indeed, I scorned to do, besides having nothing convenient to my hand.
'Look you, Squire Launce,' she said again, crying from the window without setting her head out, 'you are something of a marksman, they say. There never was a nonsuch like our Spurheel—in Spurheel's own estimation. But I can outmark him. Fix your eye on yon black rock with the tide just coming over it—one, two, and three—!'
And in a moment one of my precious broad-bellied bottles of wine played clash on Samson's reef two hundred feet below the White Tower. I was fairly dancing now with anger, and threatened to come down my rope ladder to be even with her. Indeed, I made the cord ready to throw myself out of the window to clamber down. But even as I did so, the glaiked maiden sent the other two jars of Canary to keep company with the first.
Then she leaned out and looked up sweetly, holding the sash of the window meantime in her hand.
'You are going to visit my father in the morning, doubtless, and tell him all about the bundle and the Grieve's lass. Good speed and my blessing!' she cried, making ready to shut the window and draw the bolt. 'I am going to sleep in Marjorie's room. The gulls are beginning to sing. I love not to hear gabble—yours or theirs!'
But I leave you to guess who it was that felt himself the greater gull.
CHAPTER III