“Nay, I am resolved I will not think it; no man, friend or enemy, shall push it into me.”
“Worshipful sir,” answered Master Silas, “I am as resolute as any one in what I would think and what I would not think, and never was known to fight dunghill in either cockpit.
“Were he only out of the way, she might do duty, but what doth she now?
“She points his young beard for him; persuading him it grows thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker; she washes his ruff, stiffens it, plaits it, tries it upon his neck, removes the hair from under it, pinches it with thumb and fore-finger, pretending that he hath moiled it, puts her hand all the way round it, setting it to rights, as she calleth it—
“Ah, Sir Thomas! a louder whistle than that will never call her back again when she is off with him.”
Sir Thomas was angered, and cried tartly,—
“Who whistled? I would know.”
Master Silas said submissively,—
“Your honour, as wrongfully I fancied.”
“Wrongfully, indeed, and to my no small disparagement and discomfort,” said the knight, verily believing that he had not whistled; for deep and dubious were his cogitations.