park, I would give him the packet and go on my way.

But as chance would have it, I had hardly just turned out of the highroad when whom should I light upon but Mistress Alison herself, going abroad with two great hounds, whom she kept to heel with a stout whip. Although I had seen naught of her for nine years I knew her again at once, for there was no mistaking the flash of her hawk’s eye nor the quick fashion in which she turned it on myself. But she had forgotten me, and at that I felt some natural pique, and resented her forgetfulness.

“Mistress Alison French?” says I, drawing rein at her side, and staring hard at her beauty as I swung my cap to the saddle bow.

“The same, sir,” says she, that quick glance of hers mixed with a little wonder. “But——” and then she recognised me. “Ah,” says she, “’tis Dick Coope! So you know me, Dick, although——”

“Although you have grown so monstrous handsome, cousin,” says I, a little rudely.

“’Tis just because you yourself are a proper-looking man that I did not recognise you,” she said with a frown. “You were as ungainly a boy as ever I saw, Master Richard, and I don’t think your manners are improved even now.”

I said naught, but sat staring at her. She had grown to a divine tallness, her figure was as plump and ripe as a woman’s should be, there was a rich colour in her cheeks, and a fine glossiness in her dark hair that was mighty taking. As for her mouth it was as sweet a morsel as a man could wish to taste, and I could see that if her eyes would melt they would put one in such a way as few women can—they were so full of that swimming roguishness that can become tender and alluring. Howbeit, she kept them hard enough at that time.

“And what brings Master Dick here?” asks she, fingering her whip.

“This packet, fair cousin,” says I, and handed her Sir Nicholas’s letter.

“From my uncle,” she says. “You give me leave to read it, cousin? I can ill bide delay of any sort.”

“’Tis reward enough,” says I teasingly, “to sit by and gaze on so much beauty.”

But at that she frowned heavily, and when she cut the silk and was fairly amongst the crabbed lines within, she frowned still more, and once I saw her white teeth close on the pretty nether lip and crush the blood out of it, whereby I guessed that Sir Nicholas had given her news that was none too sweet. And at last she folds up the sheet with a rustle and whips it into her breast, and looks at me with a glance that had made the great Turk himself shake in his shoes.

“So you prefer books to swords, Master Richard?” says she.

“Did I say so?” says I.

And for very love of sport I laughed mockingly. She drew herself up to her full height—egad! I had never seen aught so taking!—and her pretty mouth curled itself, while the rich colour flushed over her dark cheek.

“Good-day to you, Master Poltroon!” says she.

“Good-day to you, Mistress Spitfire!” says I.

And with mutual consent we turned our backs on one another. But I laughed long and loud as I trotted away to keep my tryst.

I.

It was but little beyond noon when I turned out of Francis French’s park into the highroad, and I suddenly bethought myself that if I went immediately to the trysting place I should be as like as not to cool my heels there for some time ere Matthew Richardson joined me. His message had required me to meet him within twenty-four hours, and of the twenty-four there were still some seven or eight to run. “Faith!” says I to myself, “he might have been more explicit—does he expect me to sit by the wayside like a tinker who puts his mare in the hedge-bottom to graze for her supper?” And I went on somewhat out of humour, and that not altogether because of Matthew’s thoughtlessness. To tell truth, Mistress Alison’s last words, though I had laughed at them, had stung me rather sharply and roused a certain anger in me. Now that I was out of her presence I felt her scorn more than while I sat watching her. “So I am to be flouted by every chit of a lass, am I?” says I, with some bitterness. But on the instant my humour changed, and I fell to laughter again at the thought of her looks when I paid her back in her own coin. “What care I?” says I, shaking my bridle reins. “Here’s for whatever comes next,” and so I cantered forward.

At the joining of the roads against Hickleton, I came to a wayside inn of so inviting a sort that I involuntarily pulled up my beast and asked myself whether it were not some time since breakfast. I then discovered that I was prodigiously hungry, and so made no more ado, but rode into the yard and handed over my horse to the hostler, bidding him take good care of it, as it was my sole dependence for a long journey. The fellow looked at it somewhat curiously.

“I could swear, master,” says he, “that this is of old Sir Nicholas Coope’s breeding—we have its marrow in yonder stable at this moment—’tis a mare that Master Dacre of Foxclough rides—I never saw two beasts more alike.”

“Aye?” says I. “Why, truly, thou hast a rare eye, lad—but what is Master Dacre’s mare doing in your stable?”

“Master Dacre’s within,” says he, nodding his head towards the inn.

“Oh!” says I, and stands staring at the door, somewhat nonplussed. I had not expected to meet any of my kinsfolk just then and scarce relished the notion. “Come,” says I to myself, “what signifies Anthony Dacre?—we’re as near strangers as may be,” and I once more bade the man see to my horse, and walked into the house.

They seemed somewhat quiet inside—there were but two or three men drinking in the kitchen, and the landlord leaned idly against the corner of the settle, his hands tucked under the wide apron that covered his capacious paunch. At sight of me he started into activity. My eyes cast about them in search of Anthony—the landlord noted it, and thought I looked for a place worthy of my condition. “If your honour will but step into the parlour,” says he, and flings the door open before me. So I slips in, and there sat Anthony Dacre with a jug of ripe ale before him and some trifle of food such as a wayside inn affords to chance comers. He gave me a glance as I stepped within the room, and I saw that he did not recognise me, which was naught to be surprised at for we had not met those seven years. For a moment, then, I stood staring at him, half doubtful whether to make myself known, or to go on my way without recognising him. Faith! I have since wondered many’s the time indeed, whether much of what followed might not have been prevented if I had turned on my heel and left Anthony to refresh himself in peace.

Now this man Anthony—at that time my senior by some three years, and as proper a looking man as you might desire to set eyes on—was the son of old Stephen Dacre of Foxclough House, that was related to Sir Nicholas Coope by his marriage with Mistress Dorothy, the old knight’s youngest sister. As for old Stephen and his wife they were both dead, and all that they had, which was but little, now lay in Master Anthony’s hands. A poor parcel of land it was, that manor of Foxclough, the soil