“Care not thou about that,” said Joliffe; “but tell me softly and hastily, what is in the pantry?”
“Small housekeeping enough,” said Phœbe; “a cold capon and some comfits, and the great standing venison pasty, with plenty of spice—a manchet or two besides, and that is all.”
“Well, it will serve for a pinch—wrap thy cloak round thy comely body—get a basket and a brace of trenchers and towels, they are heinously impoverished down yonder—carry down the capon and the manchets—the pasty must abide with this same soldier and me, and the pie-crust will serve us for bread.”
“Rarely,” said Phœbe; “I made the paste myself—it is as thick as the walls of Fair Rosamond’s Tower.”
“Which two pairs of jaws would be long in gnawing through, work hard as they might,” said the keeper. “But what liquor is there?”
“Only a bottle of Alicant, and one of sack, with the stone jug of strong waters,” answered Phœbe.
“Put the wine-flasks into thy basket,” said Joceline, “the knight must not lack his evening draught—and down with thee to the hut like a lapwing. There is enough for supper, and to-morrow is a new day.—Ha! by heaven I thought yonder man’s eye watched us—No—he only rolled it round him in a brown study—Deep enough doubtless, as they all are.—But d—n him, he must be bottomless if I cannot sound him before the night’s out.—Hie thee away, Phœbe.”
But Phœbe was a rural coquette, and, aware that Joceline’s situation gave him no advantage of avenging the challenge in a fitting way, she whispered in his ear, “Do you think our knight’s friend, Shakspeare, really found out all these naughty devices the gentleman spoke of?”
Off she darted while she spoke, while Joliffe menaced future vengeance with his finger, as he muttered, “Go thy way, Phœbe Mayflower, the lightest-footed and lightest-hearted wench that ever tripped the sod in Woodstock-park!—After her, Bevis, and bring her safe to our master at the hut.”
The large greyhound arose like a human servitor who had received an order, and followed Phœbe through the hall, first licking her hand to make her sensible of his presence, and then putting himself to a slow trot, so as best to accommodate himself to the light pace of her whom he convoyed, whom Joceline had not extolled for her activity without due reason. While Phœbe and her guardian thread the forest glades, we return to the Lodge.