I woman you.
I have not been called Mistress at the head of the table for so many
years, to be woman'd here by you. And for the news, it is as true as
that you are sitting there in a white hood, who will wear a black one
ere long."

"Lance Outram," said the old woman, "make out, if thou be'st a man, and
listen about if aught stirs up at the Castle."

"If there should," said Outram, "I am even too long here;" and he caught
up his crossbow, and one or two arrows, and rushed out of the cottage.

"Well-a-day!" said Mistress Deborah, "see if my news have not frightened
away Lance Outram too, whom they used to say nothing could start. But do
not take on so, dame; for I dare say if the Castle and the lands pass
to my new master, Major Bridgenorth, as it is like they will--for I have
heard that he has powerful debts over the estate--you shall have my good
word with him, and I promise you he is no bad man; something precise
about preaching and praying, and about the dress which one should wear,
which, I must own, beseems not a gentleman, as, to be sure, every woman
knows best what becomes her. But for you, dame, that wear a prayer-book
at your girdle, with your housewife-case, and never change the fashion
of your white hood, I dare say he will not grudge you the little matter
you need, and are not able to win."

"Out, sordid jade!" exclaimed Dame Ellesmere, her very flesh quivering
betwixt apprehension and anger, "and hold your peace this instant, or I
will find those that shall flay the very hide from thee with dog-whips.
Hast thou ate thy noble master's bread, not only to betray his trust,
and fly from his service, but wouldst thou come here, like an ill-omened
bird as thou art, to triumph over his downfall?"

"Nay, dame," said Deborah, over whom the violence of the old woman had
obtained a certain predominance; "it is not I that say it--only the
warrant of the Parliament folks."

"I thought we had done with their warrants ever since the blessed
twenty-ninth of May," said the old housekeeper of Martindale Castle;
"but this I tell thee, sweetheart, that I have seen such warrants
crammed, at the sword's point, down the throats of them that brought
them; and so shall this be, if there is one true man left to drink of
the Dove."

As she spoke, Lance Outram re-entered the cottage. "Naunt," he said in
dismay, "I doubt it is true what she says. The beacon tower is as black
as my belt. No Pole-star of Peveril. What does that b