"What, Fawkes?"

"Nay, how dense thou art. Up and dress quickly. He is in the garden, I'll wager, trying to keep tryst with my child. Dress quickly, and bring thy sword. If he be not pricked to-night as a warning my name is not Cobbe. I'll wait thee in the passage below."

He slipped out on to the broad landing, and waited, when, to his surprise and rage, he saw a figure hooded and cloaked, glide down the stairs and out of the front door, which creaked lightly as the girl passed through.

"Curse her!" he muttered. "I could slay her at once, but I'll take her with him. Pest on this fellow, how long he is!"

He was completely out of patience when he heard the stairs creak, and Sir Mark crept softly down.

"Quick!" the founder cried, "or we shall be too late. Now," he whispered, "go you and watch, sword in hand, by the bridge. You can manage without going in this time, while I search the garden. We'll trap him to-night. How dare he come?"

The couple separated, and, each taking his apportioned part, Gil Carr's chance of escape seemed small indeed. He was beneath Mace's window, and in another minute the founder, sword in hand, would have been upon him, had not a faint cry from another part of the garden drawn him aside to where, dimly enough, he could see Mace's cloak and hood beside a tall dark figure.

The founder stood watching for a few minutes, and, sooth to say, hesitating; for now it had come to a point, he was loth to injure Gil, partly from a latent liking for him, partly because of his power amongst the people of the place. But the recollection of Abel Churr's disappearance made his heart grow stern, and, with the full determination to chastise Gil for his insolence in coming to the house after being so sternly forbidden, he cautiously advanced to where the figures were standing.

The catching of a rose-thorn in his doublet and the sharp rustle the twig gave in being released sufficed to alarm the wearer of the cloak, and she glided quickly down the garden-walk with her companion, disappearing from the founder's gaze; and, though he followed them cautiously, they must have gone down some side-path, for he could not see them again.

"Pest on them!" he muttered. "They knew I was on the watch."

Under this impression he crept cautiously back towards the house, expecting to see them there; but, though he waited some time, there was no sign, and he went down the garden again, which, fortunately for Gil, was sufficiently extensive to allow of the meeting in progress going on unheard.

The founder was not aware of the fact, but more than once in the darkness he was literally hunting the two figures, which kept gliding on before him, avoiding him almost by a miracle, till in sheer weariness and disgust he returned to where Sir Mark was impatiently watching near the bridge.

"Well! Hast seen them?" he said.

"Nay," said the founder, "only once. We'll wait here and see if they come."

The words had scarcely left his lips before he uttered an exclamation, and ran towards the house, just in time to catch a dark figure stealing towards the door.

"Quick!" he whispered to Sir Mark, who had followed him; and, half-carrying the captive within doors, the founder tore aside the hood, exclaiming against his daughter for her wanton ways.

"What will Sir Mark think of you?" he cried angrily. "He will--Why, curse the girl; it's Janet!"

Janet it was, who on the spur of the moment had masqueraded as her mistress, gone down the garden, and with throbbing heart thrown herself as she believed in Gil's way. For he suddenly seized her in his arms, and, though she uttered a faint cry and escaped, she took care not to go beyond his vision, but led him a Will-o'-the-Wisp kind of dance from walk to walk, till, thinking she had been sufficiently coy, she stopped short, quite out of breath, and allowed herself to be caught.

He who captured her was sharper of eyesight, and, in spite of the cloak and hood, not for a moment deceived. He had made too much use of his eyes by night for them to play him false; and, as once more he caught the girl in his arms, he held her tightly, exclaiming--

"Why, Janet, you pretty little witch, have I caught thee at last?"

The girl no sooner felt the rough face of her captor against hers than she struggled vigorously, though in vain.

"Why, it be Mas' Wat Kilby," she panted.

"Wat Kilby it is, my darling," he replied in an amorous growl. "Who did you think it was?"

"Never mind," cried the girl; "loose me, you wicked old bear, or I'll shriek for help. There--quick--there's some one coming."

It was so true that Wat Kilby relaxed his grip, all but that upon one of the girl's wrists, and this he held as together they hurried through the garden on tiptoe, Janet, becoming more amiable, whispering her companion to go cautiously "for heaven's sake!"

He obeyed her, and together they glided from path to path of the great bosky, tree-shadowed garden, literally hunted from place to place by the founder, until, finding that he had given up the quest, Janet freed herself from the grasp of Wat Kilby and made for the door, quite satisfied with her escapade, and only thinking now of getting safely back.

"A horrible old bear!" she muttered; and then her heart sank, for a figure she knew to be that of her master made at her, and she was caught by the wrist.

Meanwhile, Wat Kilby, who had followed at a short distance, muttering to himself, and calling Janet "a coy little craft," "a tricksey little caravel," and half-a-dozen more suitable nautical terms expressive of her distant ways and tempting prettiness, suddenly became aware of the danger to his leader. For the founder at the end of a few minutes came out of the house with Sir Mark, and posted himself where he would be certain to encounter Gil as he came away.

"And then there might be mischief," growled the old sailor. "If the skipper went down, it would break little beauty's heart; so it would if he pricked her father. This is the second time I've saved him through being here. Wonder whether he'll be ungrateful enough to turn upon me now for doing a bit o' gentle courting on my own account.

"Ho, ho, ho," he chuckled; "just as if a man could ever be too old to love a pretty girl. Old women are old women, and not much account; but a staunch, sturdy, seasoned man, why he's like old oak, and makes the best o' building wood. Now, then, where's the skipper? It's high time for us to be sheering off."

He pretty well knew from former observations where to encounter Gil; and, creeping cautiously amongst the bushes, he waited his time, and rose up before him as he was making for the bridge.

"All right, skipper," he whispered. "Breakers ahead! Hard down, and let's get back the other way."

Gil knew Wat too well to think that he would deceive him or be mistaken, and, placing himself under his guidance, he followed him to the back of the garden, where they leaped the fence, and at last reached the edge of the pool.

"There's no other way to get back without being seen, skipper,"

whispered Wat. "We must wade across here; and, if it gets too deep, try a swim. They're watching to pook us by the bridge."

"Who is watching?" whispered Gil.

"Mas' Cobbe and that dandy Jack."

"Let them watch!" muttered Gil, as he thought of his parting from Mace that night; and with light heart, and a feeling of readiness to encounter anything for his young love's sake, the young man followed his companion into the cold, dark waters of the Pool.

Volume 2, Chapter II.

HOW SIR MARK SHOWED HIS HEART.

"Have I drunk some love potion?" muttered Sir Mark to himself very early the next morning, "or am I going back to my calf-love days? Here have I enjoyed more conquests than any man at the court. I came down to the Moat, and pretty Mistress Anne Beckley throws herself into my arms; then I come on here to find myself regularly taken--trapped as it were. She does what she likes with me, even as she does with that bully, Carr. I fight against it, and make myself worse. I declare I will think of her no more, but go back and swear allegiance to pretty red-haired Mistress Anne, when Mace's eyes rise up before me, and turn me from my way. She is so calm and sweet, and seems so pure, that I am beaten."

He walked up and down the old parlour, where Janet was bringing in the various preparations for the breakfast, coquetting about till she caught his eye and smiled and looked down, throwing out invitation after invitation, when, as she passed close to him, he caught her in his arms and kissed her, easily overcoming the girl's faint opposition, and repeating the salute till she broke away and made off, leaving him smiling at his success.

"Why, there isn't a woman living that I could not win," he said to himself. "Bah! What an idiot I am. What are the kisses of such a creature as that worth compared to the slightest smile of such a girl as Mace? I am sick at heart!"

He walked up and down again, and just then Janet came back, mincing and blushing, and making a great pretence of being terribly alarmed, when, to her disgust, she found that Sir Mark was so abstracted that he paid not the slightest heed to her presence, but walked straight to the window, and stood gazing out into the garden.

Poor Janet's face was a study as she rattled the breakfast-plates and knives, thumped dishes down upon the table, and coughed to take the visitor's attention, but all in vain. She had rapidly recovered from the snubbing administered by her master, and was congratulating herself upon her conquest, when now, all at once, when the visitor's last kiss was still wet upon her lips, he had turned away.

Janet tried in vain to take his attention, and ended by flouncing out of the old parlour, hot with indignant wrath.

"No," mused Sir Mark, whose eyes were resting upon Mace, where, sweet and fresh as the flowers she was picking, she wandered down one of the garden-walks; "the old man is wrong. She is not the girl to trifle.

She is not the woman a man might make his mistress. It is all folly about their meetings. Carr may play the Spanish gallant beneath her window, but if any meeting has been held it has been with that gamesome, wanton jade--Janet."

"How beautiful she is!" he muttered, as, forgetful of Janet's presence and the kisses he had taken, he gazed with kindling eyes at the gentle, pallid face, lit up with the consciousness of love for Gil and of his truth. For there was a happy smile on Mace's lip that morning, and her face, that had of late been pale, was now tinged with a tender peachy bloom. There was grace in her every movement, and Mark Leslie's heart beat fast.

"No," he said, "she is too pure and innocent to become the mistress of any man. Curse it all, no one could be such a villain as to wrong her,"

he cried, with a sudden access of morality that had not existed in his composition a few weeks back. "She is lovely enough to be the wife of any man. Suppose that simple stuff gown and white linen kerchief, cap, and cuffs were exchanged for a rich brocade, with jewels in her hair, and round that soft, sweet neck, which would tempt a man to risk his salvation that he might clasp it. Curse me, I wish I were one of the flowers she is plucking with those delicious fingers. What does it mean--has she bewitched me, or, as I say, has some love-philtre been at work?"

"Curse me, if I care what it is!" he cried at last, excitedly, as he still gazed through the casement at the unconscious girl. "She'd be a wife for a prince. Her knowledge is wonderful; her mien purity and sweetness combined; her voice low and silvery, as if music had assisted at her birth. Why not win her and wed her, and at once?"