“I thank you,” said Alice in reply; and continued to fill her pitcher busily, by assistance of an iron bowl which remained still chained to one of the stones beside the fountain.
“Perhaps, my pretty maiden, if you would accept my help, your work would be sooner done,” said the stranger.
“I thank you,” said Alice; “but had I needed assistance, I could have brought those with me who had rendered it.”
“I do not doubt of that, my pretty maiden,” answered the female; “there are too many lads in Woodstock with eyes in their heads—No doubt you could have brought with you any one of them who looked on you, if you had listed.”
Alice replied not a syllable, for she did not like the freedom used by the speaker, and was desirous to break off the conversation.
“Are you offended, my pretty mistress?” said the stranger; “that was far from my purpose.—I will put my question otherwise.—Are the good dames of Woodstock so careless of their pretty daughters as to let the flower of them all wander about the wild chase without a mother, or a somebody to prevent the fox from running away with the lamb?—that carelessness, methinks, shows small kindness.”
“Content yourself, good woman, I am not far from protection and assistance,” said Alice, who liked less and less the effrontery of her new acquaintance.
“Alas! my pretty maiden,” said the stranger, patting with her large and hard hand the head which Alice had kept bended down towards the water which she was laving, “it would be difficult to hear such a pipe as yours at the town of Woodstock, scream as loud as you would.”
Alice shook the woman’s hand angrily off, took up her pitcher, though not above half full, and as she saw the stranger rise at the same time, said, not without fear doubtless, but with a natural feeling of resentment and dignity, “I have no reason to make my cries heard as far as Woodstock; were there occasion for my crying for help at all, it is nearer at hand.”
She spoke not without a warrant; for, at the moment, broke through the bushes, and stood by her side, the noble hound Bevis; fixing on the stranger his eyes that glanced fire, raising every hair on his gallant mane as upright as the bristles of a wild boar when hard pressed, grinning till a case of teeth, which would have matched those of any wolf in Russia, were displayed in full array, and, without either barking or springing, seeming, by his low determined growl, to await but the signal for dashing at the female, whom he plainly considered as a suspicious person.