But he had not. The fence was there to protect the ruins from the feet of straying cattle. It was not needed to keep off the people of the little place, for they gazed upon it with awe, and whispered that it was haunted by the dead. And, when Master Peasegood asked thereof, the founder said his words stood firm. But this was when weeks had glided by, and Gil Carr's ship was tossing far away upon the sea.

Volume 3, Chapter VIII.

HOW THE BECKLEY PULLET RULED THE ROOST.

Dame Beckley was one of the happiest women under the sun, for she had scarcely a care. Her sole idea of home management was obedience, and she obeyed her lord implicitly. Next to him she yielded no little show of duty to her daughter, who ruled her with a rod of iron, which she changed for one of steel when dealing with her father.

"Well, my dear," said the dame, "speaking as a woman of the world, I must say I think it hardly becoming of us to keep Sir Mark here after his behaviour to us before. See how he slighted us. Fancy a man who calls himself a courtier telling a lady of title that her camomile tea that she has made with her own hands--it was the number one, my dear, flavoured with balm--was no better than poison."

"Never mind the camomile tea, mother. I tell you I wish Sir Mark to be persuaded to stay."

"Ah, well, my dear, if you wish it, of course he shall be pressed. I'll tell him that you insisted--"

"Mother!"

"La! my dear, what have I done now?" cried Dame Beckley. "You quite startle me when you stamp your feet and look like that."

"How can you be so foolish, mother? Go--go, and tell Sir Mark--insist upon his staying here."

"Well, my dear, and very proud he ought to be, I'm sure. Why, when I was young, if a gentleman had--"

"Mother!"

"There, there, my dear, I've done. I'll try and persuade Sir Mark to stay. I'm sure it would do him good, though I don't want him. It always seems to me that that terrible explosion sent a regular jar through what Master Furton, the Queen's chirurgeon, called the absorbens. If he were my son, I should certainly make him take a spoonful of my conserve of elder night and morning, and drink agrimony tea three times a day. In cases where there is the slightest touch of fever there is nothing--bless the girl, why she has gone, when did she go out of the room?"

Mistress Anne had gone away directly after her last imperious utterance of the word "mother," and walked straight to her father's room.

She had left Dame Beckley busy over her herbal, and she now found her father also on study bent, his book being a kind of magistrates' _vade mecum_ of those days on the subject of witchcraft, and the author his Majesty the King.

"What are you reading, father?" she said, making him start as she came suddenly behind him and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"His Majesty's book, my dear."

"Why?"

"Well, you see, my dear, it behoves me as a justice of the peace to be well informed of his Majesty's views respecting the heinous sin of witchcraft, and to know how I should comport myself and deal with so foul a creature in case, at any future time--"

"Mother Goodhugh should be brought before you?"

"Yes, exactly," said the baronet. "My dear Anne, I'd give almost everything I possess for your clear discerning head."

"Never mind my head, father," she said, with a half-laugh; "I want to speak to you about more important things."

"Yes, my dear, certainly. But won't you sit down? You worry me when you tower over me so, and threaten, and preach at me. Do sit down, child, pray."

"Nay, father, you can hear what I have to say without my seating myself."

"Yes, my dear," said Sir Thomas, humbly.

"Let Mother Goodhugh be, father."

"But, my child, she is a most pestiferous witch."

"For the present, father. For the present, let her be."

"Well, my dear, if you wish it, of course--"

"I do wish it, father."

"How odd, my dear, that you should come to say that, when I was studying up the matter."

"I did not come to say that, father," said Anne; "but to speak to you about our guest."

"Yes, my dear, he has been here now six weeks since that disaster."

"Seven weeks, father."

"Well, my child, seven weeks if you like; and he has sent back those soldier fellows and his own attendants, and seems to have settled himself down. I mean to tell him that he had better--"

"Stay here till his health is quite recovered, father."

"Nay, indeed, my child, after his grossly neglectful behaviour to us, I feel ready at any time to send him away."

"But you will do no such thing, father. Sir Mark is your guest, and an important officer of his Majesty."

"An' if he had not been I should very soon--"

"Your good treatment of so important a gentleman may mean something in the future. It is always well, father, to have friends at Court."

"Yes, yes, my child, but to leave us in so scurvy a way, and take up his abode with old Cobbe."

"That has nothing to do with the matter, father. Ask him to stay."

"But, Anne, my child."

"Father, I insist upon your forcing him to stay."

"Force," said Sir Thomas; "ah, there'll be no need of that. The job will be to force him to go. But surely, child, thou'lt never think of setting thy cap at him after his engagement with the founder's child?"

"I? Set my cap! Oh, father," she cried, with a weak giggle, "that is too good. I absolutely hate him."

"Then I'll tell him we wish him--"

"To stay as long as he can, father. Go at once."

"But, my dear, he is going to-morrow. He told me so when he was on his way to the moat to fish, and I told him I was glad to hear it."

"You told him that, father?" cried Anne, with flashing eyes.