n Warbeck, found there a noisy party of beaux,
all richly dressed, all full of wine, and all seeming to be the guests
of a handsome fellow more elegantly attired and wearing a more dashing
air than any of them. He was in blue and silver and had fair golden
love-locks which fell in rich profusion on his shoulders.

He stood up among the company leaning against the table, taking snuff
from a jewelled gold snuff-box with an insolent, laughing grace.

"A quaint jade she must be, damme," he said. "I have heard of her these
three years, and she is not yet fifteen. Never were told me such
stories of a young thing's beauty since I was man-born. Eyes like
stars, flaming and black as jet, a carriage like a Juno, a shape--good
Lord! like all the goddesses a man has heard of--and hair which is like
a mantle and sweeps upon the ground. In less than a year's time I will
go to Gloucestershire and bring back a lock of it--for a trophy." And
he looked about him mockingly, as if in triumph.

"She will clout thee blind, Jack, as she clouted the Chaplain," cried
one of the company. "No man that lives can tame her. She is the
fiercest shrew in England, as she is the greatest beauty."

"She will thrash thee, Jack, as she thrashed her own father with his
hunting crop when she was but five years old," another cried.

The beau in blue and silver flicked the grains of snuff lightly from
the lace of his steenkirk with a white jewelled hand and smiled, slowly
nodding his fair curled head.

"I know all that," he said. "Every story have I heard, and, egad! they
but fire my blood. She is high mettled, but I have dealt with
termagants before--and brought them down, by God!--and brought them
down! There is a way to tame a woman--and I know it. Begin with a light
soft hand and a melting eye--all's fair in love; and the spoils are to
the victor. When I come back from Gloucestershire with my lock of raven
hair"--he lifted a goblet of wine and tossed it off at a draught--"I
shall leave her as such beauties should be left--on her knees." And
his laugh rang forth like a chime of silver. Roxholm sprang up with a
smothered oath.

"Come!" he said to Warbeck. "Come away, in God's name."

Warbeck had been his fellow-soldier abroad and knew well the dangerous
spirit which hid itself beneath his calm. He had seen him roused to
fury once before ('twas when in Flanders after a skirmish he found some
drunken soldiers stripping a poor struggling peasant woman o