jolly smith," he said, "have I caught thee in the manner? What,
can the true steel bend? Can Vulcan, as the minstrel says, pay Venus
back in her own coin? Faith, thou wilt be a gay Valentine before the
year's out, that begins with the holiday so jollily."

"Hark ye, Oliver," said the displeased smith, "shut your eyes and pass
on, crony. And hark ye again, stir not your tongue about what concerns
you not, as you value having an entire tooth in your head."

"I betray counsel? I bear tales, and that against my brother martialist?
I would not tell it even to my timber soldan! Why, I can be a wild
galliard in a corner as well as thou, man. And now I think on't, I
will go with thee somewhere, and we will have a rouse together, and thy
Dalilah shall give us a song. Ha! said I not well?"

"Excellently," said Henry, longing the whole time to knock his brother
martialist down, but wisely taking a more peaceful way to rid himself of
the incumbrance of his presence--"excellently well! I may want thy help,
too, for here are five or six of the Douglasses before us: they will not
fail to try to take the wench from a poor burgher like myself, so I will
be glad of the assistance of a tearer such as thou art."

"I thank ye--I thank ye," answered the bonnet maker; "but were I not
better run and cause ring the common bell, and get my great sword?"

"Ay, ay, run home as fast as you can, and say nothing of what you have
seen."

"Who, I? Nay, fear me not. Pah! I scorn a tale bearer."

"Away with you, then. I hear the clash of armour."

This put life and mettle into the heels of the bonnet maker, who,
turning his back on the supposed danger, set off at a pace which the
smith never doubted would speedily bring him to his own house.

"Here is another chattering jay to deal with," thought the smith; "but
I have a hank over him too. The minstrels have a fabliau of a daw
with borrowed feathers--why, this Oliver is The very bird, and, by St.
Dunstan, if he lets his chattering tongue run on at my expense, I will
so pluck him as never hawk plumed a partridge. And this he knows."

As these reflections thronged on his mind, he had nearly reached the end
of his journey, and, with the glee maiden still hanging on his cloak,
exhausted, partly with fear, partly with fatigue, he at length arrived
at the middle of the wynd, which was honoured with his own habitation,
and from which, in the uncertainty that then attended the application
of surnames,