hat think you of that?" (he held
each ingredient up on a prong as he spoke). "And here be larks,
partridge stuffed with sage, ripe chestnuts from La Valery, and
whisper it not to any of the marshal's men, a fawn from the park of a
month old, dressed like a kid so that none may know."

"I suppose that so much providing is for your four sons?" said Sholto.

The cripple laughed again his feeble, fleering laugh.

"I have no sons, honest sir," he said; "it was but a weakling's policy
to tell you so, lest there should have been evil in your hearts. But I
have a wife and that is enough. You may have heard of her. She is
called La Meffraye."

As he spoke his face took on an access of white terror, even as it had
done when he looked out of the window.

"La Meffraye is she well named," he repeated the appellation with a
harsh croak as of a night-hawk screaming. "God forfend that she should
come home to-night and find you here!"

"Why, good sir," smiled James Douglas, "if that be the manner in which
you speak of your housewife, faith, I am right glad to have remained a
bachelor."

Caesar the cripple looked about him and lowered his voice.

"Hush!" he quavered, breathing hard so that his words whistled between
his toothless gums, "you do not know my wife. I tell you, she is the
familiar of the marshal himself."

"Then," cried James Douglas, slapping his thigh, "she is young and
pretty, of a surety. I know what these soldiers are familiar with. I
would that she would come home and partake with us now."

"Nay," said the old man, without taking offence, "you mistake, kind
sir, I meant familiar in witchcraft, in devilry--not (as it were) in
levity and cozenage."

The fragrant stew was now ready to be dished in great platters of
wood, and the guests fell to keenly, each being provided with a wooden
spoon. The meat they cut with their daggers, but the most part was,
however, tender enough to come apart in their fingers, which, as all
know, better preserves the savour.

At first the cripple denied having any wine, but another gold angel
from the Lord James induced him to draw a leathern bottle from some
secret hoard, and decant it into a pitcher for them. It was resinous
and Spanish, but, as Malise said, "It made warm the way it went down."
And after all with wine that is always the principal thing.

As the feast proceeded old Caesar Martin told the three Scots why the
long street of the village had been cleared of childre