To hasten to the wood-hole, and there to robe the English knight in a short gown and petticoat, which she had provided for the purpose, was the work of another moment. She then undid the gates of the tower, and made towards the byre, or cow-house, which stood in one corner of the courtyard. Sir Piercie Shafton remonstrated against the delay which this would occasion.
“Fair and generous Molinara,” he said, “had we not better undo the outward gate, and make the best of our way hence, even like a pair of sea-mews who make towards shelter of the rocks as the storm waxes high?”
“We must drive out the cows first,” said Mysie, “for a sin it were to spoil the poor widow's cattle, both for her sake and the poor beasts' own; and I have no mind any one shall leave the tower in a hurry to follow us. Besides, you must have your horse, for you will need a fleet one ere all be done.”
So saying, she locked and double-locked both the inward and outward door of the tower, proceeded to the cow-house, turned out the cattle, and, giving the knight his own horse to lead, drove them before her out at the court-yard gate, intending to return for her own palfrey. But the noise attending the first operation caught the wakeful attention of Edward, who, starting to the bartizan, called to know what the matter was.
Mysie answered with great readiness, that “she was driving out the cows, for that they would be spoiled for want of looking to.”
“I thank thee, kind maiden,” said Edward—“and yet,” he added, after a moment's pause, “what damsel is that thou hast with thee?”
Mysie was about to answer, when Sir Piercie Shafton, who apparently did not desire that the great work of his liberation should be executed without the interposition of his own ingenuity, exclaimed from beneath, “I am she, O most bucolical juvenal, under whose charge are placed the milky mothers of the herd.”
“Hell and darkness!” exclaimed Edward, in a transport of fury and astonishment, “it is Piercie Shafton—What! treason! treason!—ho!—Dan—Jasper—Martin—the villain escapes!”
“To horse! to horse!” cried Mysie, and in an instant mounted behind the knight, who was already in the saddle.
Edward caught up a cross-bow, and let fly a bolt, which whistled so near Mysie's ear, that she called to her companion,—“Spur—spur, Sir Knight!—the next will not miss us.—Had it been Halbert instead of Edward who bent that bow, we had been dead.”