peaceful house--good-bye." Nancy,
too, had a regret. They had had a gleeful hour here, among frank and
kindly folk, even if they had also been a bit frightened. Anything
that had gone wrong with them had been their fault. Tristram placed a
bench at the window that the ladies might climb over, and thus they
got out, and immediately the sound of their carriage wheels was heard
in the yard. Plunkett had waked up meantime and had come out to call
the girls. It was time for their day's work to begin. Farmer folk are
out of bed early.

"Ho, girls!--time to be up," he called, entering from his chamber.
Then he saw the open window. He paused. "Do I hear carriage
wheels--and the window open--and the bench--and the girls--gone! Ho
there! Everybody!" he rushed out and furiously pulled the bell which
hung from the pole outside. His farmhands come running. "Ho--those
girls hired yesterday have gone. Get after them. Bring them back. I
may drop dead the next instant, but I'll be bound they shan't treat us
in this manner. After them! Back they shall come!" And in the midst of
all this confusion in ran Lionel.

"What----"

"Thieves!--the girls have run off--a nice return for our affections!"

"After them!--don't lose a minute," Lionel then cried in his turn, and
away rushed the farmhands.

"They are ours for one year, by law. Bring them back, or ye shall
suffer for it. Be off!" And the men mounted horses and went after the
runaways like the wind.

"Nice treatment!"

"Shameful!" Plunkett cried, dropping into a chair, nearly fainting
with rage.

ACT III

Plunkett's men had hunted far and wide for the runaways, but without
success. The farmer was still sore over his defeat: he felt himself
not only defrauded, but he had grown to love Nancy, and altogether he
became very unhappy. One day he was sitting with his fellow farmers
around a table in a little forest inn, drinking his glass of beer,
when he heard the sound of hunting horns in the distance.

"Hello! a hunting party from the palace must be out," he remarked, but
the music of the horn which once pleased him could no longer arouse
him from his moodiness. Nevertheless an extraordinary thing was about
to happen. As he went into the inn for a moment, into the grove
whirled--Nancy! all bespangled in a rich hunting costume and
accompanied by her friends who were enjoying the hunt with her. They
were singing a rousing hunting chorus, but Martha--Lady Harriet--was
not with th