e? I must
have it, I must find it, so that Gammer Gurton may take her will to the
justice of the peace!"

And in frantic desperation, Hodge searched all about on the floor for
the lost needle, and Gammer Gurton stuck her large spectacles on her
flaming red nose and peered about on the table. So eager was she in the
search, that she even let her tongue rest a little, and deep silence
reigned in the room.

Suddenly this silence was broken by a voice; which seemed to come from
the courtyard. It was a soft, sweet voice that cried: "Hodge, dear
Hodge, are you there? Come to me in the court, only for a few minutes! I
want to have a bit of a laugh with you!"

It was as though an electric shock had passed through the room with that
voice, and struck at the same time both Gammer Gurton and Hodge.

Both startled, and discontinuing the search, stood there wholly
immovable, as if petrified. Hodge especially, poor Hodge, was as if
struck by lightning. His great bluish-white eyes appeared to be coming
out of their sockets; his long arms hung down, flapping and dangling
about like a flail; his knees, half bent, seemed already to be giving
way in expectation of the approaching storm.

This storm did not in fact make him wait long. "That is Tib!" screamed
Gammer Gurton, springing like a lioness upon Hodge and seizing him
by the shoulders with both her hands. "That is Tib, you thread-like,
pitiful greyhound! Well, was I not right, now, when I called you a
faithless, good-for-nothing scamp, that spares not innocence, and breaks
the hearts of the women as he would a cracker, which he swallows at his
pleasure? Was I not right, in saying that you were only watching for me
to go out in order to go and sport with Tib?"

"Hodge, my dear, darling Hodge," cried the voice beneath there, and this
time louder and more tender than before, "Hodge, oh come, do now, come
with me in the court, as you promised me; come and get the kiss for
which you begged me this morning!"

"I will be a damned otter, if I begged her for it, and if I understand a
single word of what she says!" said Hodge, wholly dumfounded and quaking
all over.

"Ah, you understand not a word of what she says?" screamed Gammer
Gurton. "Well, but I understand it. I understand that everything between
us is past and done with, and that I have nothing more to do with you,
you Moloch, you! I understand that I shall not go and make my will,
to become your wife and fret myself to death