sitated, and appeared as
though deeply revolving some secret source of both anxiety and alarm.

The cavalier was silent too, but the result of his deliberations was
of a nature precisely opposite to that of his fair opponent.

"Our beasts being ready, Chisenhall," said he to his companion, "we
will depart while the day holds on favourable. We may have worse
weather, and still worse quarters, should we tarry here till noontide,
as we purposed. But"--and here he looked earnestly at the maiden--"we
shall come again, I trust, when they that seek our lives be laid low."

She put one hand on his arm, speaking not aloud, but with great
earnestness--

"Go not; and your lives peradventure shall be given you for a prey.
There is a godly man hereabout, unto whom I will have recourse; and he
shall guide you in this perplexity."

"We be men having little time to spare, and less inclination--higlers
too, into the bargain," replied he, with a dubious glance toward his
friend Chisenhall, who was just despatching the last visible relics of
a repast in which he had taken a more than equal share of the duty;
"we are not careful to tarry, or to resort unto such ghostly counsel.
We would rather listen to the lips of those whose least word we covet
more than the preaching of either priest or Puritan; but the time is
now come when we must eschew even such blessed and holy"----

"There's a time for all things," said Chisenhall hastily, and as soon
as his mouth was at rest from the solid contents with which he had
been successfully, and almost uninterruptedly, occupied for the last
half-hour; wishful, also, to abate the impression which his
companion's indiscreet intimation of dislike to psalm-singers and
Puritans might have produced. "There is a time to buy and to sell, and
to get gain; a time to marry, and a time to be merry and be glad:"
here he used a sort of whining snuffle, which frustrated his attempts
at neutralising the sarcasms of his friend. "Being in haste," he
continued, "we may not profit by thy discourse; but commend ourselves
to his prayers until our return, which, God willing, we may safely
accomplish in a se'nnight at the farthest."

"If ye depart, I will not answer for your safe keeping."

"And if we stay, my pretty maiden, I am fearful we _shall_ be in safe
keeping." An ambiguous smile curled his lip, which she fully
understood. Indeed, her manner and appearance were so much superior to
her station, that no lady of