beach,
shouting at the top of his voice, "'Tis a marmaiden--a marmaiden asleep
in Willy Passmore's boat!"

"I wish it were any sich good luck," she could hear Will say; "'tis my
wife, oh dear!" and he cowered down, expecting the hearty cuff which he
received duly, as the White Witch, leaping out of the boat, dared any
man to touch it, and thundered to her husband to go home to bed.

The wily dame, as Rose well guessed, was keeping up this delay chiefly
to gain time for her pupil: but she had also more solid reasons for
making the fight as hard as possible; for she, as well as Rose, had
already discerned in the ungainly figure of one of the party the same
suspicious Welsh gentleman, on whose calling she had divined long
ago; and she was so loyal a subject as to hold in extreme horror her
husband's meddling with such "Popish skulkers" (as she called the whole
party roundly to their face)--unless on consideration of a very handsome
sum of money. In vain Parsons thundered, Campian entreated, Mr. Leigh's
groom swore, and her husband danced round in an agony of mingled fear
and covetousness.

"No," she cried, "as I am an honest woman and loyal! This is why you
left the boat down to the shoore, you old traitor, you, is it? To help
off sich noxious trade as this out of the hands of her majesty's quorum
and rotulorum? Eh? Stand back, cowards! Will you strike a woman?"

This last speech (as usual) was merely indicative of her intention to
strike the men; for, getting out one of the oars, she swung it round and
round fiercely, and at last caught Father Parsons such a crack across
the shins, that he retreated with a howl.

"Lucy, Lucy!" shrieked her husband, in shrillest Devon falsetto, "be you
mazed? Be you mazed, lass? They promised me two gold nobles before I'd
lend them the boot!"

"Tu?" shrieked the matron, with a tone of ineffable scorn. "And do yu
call yourself a man?"

"Tu nobles! tu nobles!" shrieked he again, hopping about at oar's
length.

"Tu? And would you sell your soul under ten?"

"Oh, if that is it," cried poor Campian, "give her ten, give her
ten, brother Pars--Morgans, I mean; and take care of your shins, Offa
Cerbero, you know--Oh, virago! Furens quid faemina possit! Certainly she
is some Lamia, some Gorgon, some--"

"Take that, for your Lamys and Gorgons to an honest woman!" and in
a moment poor Campian's thin legs were cut from under him, while the
virago, "mounting on his trunk astride," like tha