wife's
a woman. You are a man. You are bigger and stronger, your bones are
harder. Get home and wear a furious face and batter in the door and say:
"What, ho, thou huzzy!" Why, man, fear you the wife of your bosom?' The
old man raised his head and said: 'Tha doost not know ma wife or tha
wouldst not speak like that.' At that Dick laughed and said: 'Fellow, I
do pity thee;' and taking the old man by the shoulders, he lifted him
on his own horse and took him to the village fair. There he bought him
twelve skeins of wool and sent him on his way rejoicing, with a horse
worth five times his own."

With her chin in her hands the girl had listened intently to the story.
When it was finished she said: "What didst thou say was the gentleman's
name?"

"His friend called him Dick. He is a poor knight, one Sir Richard
Mowbray, of Leicester, called at Court and elsewhere Happy Dick Mowbray,
for they do say a happier and braver heart never wore the King's
uniform."

"Indeed I should like to know that Sir Richard Mowbray. And, tell me
now, who is the greatest person thou hast seen in thy absence?"

"I saw the King--at Boston town."

"The King! The King!" Her eyes lightened, her hands clapped merrily.
"What did he say to thee? Now, now, there is that dark light in thine
eyes again. I will not have it so!" With her thumbs she daintily drew
down the eyelids and opened them again. "There, that's better. Now what
did the King say to thee?"

"He said to me that I should be Sir John Enderby, of Enderby."

"A knight! A knight! He made thee a knight?" she asked gaily. She
slipped from his knee and courtesied before him, then seeing the
heaviness of his look, she added: "Booh, Sir John Enderby, why dost thou
look so grave? Is knighthood so big a burden thou dost groan under it?"

"Come here, my lass," he said gently. "Thou art young, but day by day
thy wisdom grows, and I can trust thee. It is better thou shouldst know
from my own lips the peril this knighthood brings, than that trouble
should suddenly fall and thou be unprepared."

Drawing her closely to him he told her the story of his meeting with the
King; of Lord Rippingdale; of the King's threat to levy upon his estates
and to issue a writ of outlawry against him.

For a moment the girl trembled, and Enderby felt her hands grow cold
in his own, for she had a quick and sensitive nature and passionate
intelligence and imagination.

"Father," she cried pantingly, indignantly,