He stood still, leering foolishly on us, just in our way; I could not bear to look at him, and would have slipt on one side; but Althea looked sternly at him, and said bitterly,—­

’Shame on you, Ralph Lacy!  You mourn for your father in a very vile manner; a swine could do no worse.’

‘Ah, sweet Mistress Dacre,’ said he, ’do you think then the grim, sour-visaged saints are reigning still?  Nay, their day is over! we have a right good fellow for a king now, and this shall be Merry England again, I can tell thee.’ (He was growing more familiar at every word.) ‘I will soon show thee what the ways are at Whitehall now;’ and he was coming much nearer to her than was pleasant, when Andrew, who came up with us at that moment, flung him out of our path with such goodwill that Master Lacy measured his length on the ground; and there we left him lying.  Althea thanked Andrew warmly and cordially; but Andrew, who had been all glowing with just wrath at first, seemed to shrink into himself at her praise.

‘It was a temptation,’ he said, ’and I have fallen.  I could have taken you out of yon fool’s way without laying a finger on him.’

’It’s something of a disgrace indeed to have touched the beast—­an oaken staff had been fitter than your hand,’ she replied.  ’Merry England, quotha! drunken England, I suppose he meant.’

‘There is too much indeed of the unclean spirit of riot abroad now,’ answered Andrew; ’but it is not with violent hands that we can cast it out.  I sinfully forgot our Lord’s word, “Resist not evil;"’ and nothing could brighten him, though Althea did her best all the way home.

There came the day when I rued Andrew’s angry action as much as he did, though not for the same reason.  Ralph Lacy was not too drunk to be unaware who had flung him aside into the dust; he never forgave it; and his hand was plainly seen afterwards in the troubles that came upon us.  Another man also contributed something to them, though more innocently.

Mr. Poole now came very much about us, and would often talk about the good family he belonged to and his hopes of speedy preferment; and another favourite topic of his was the gay suits he had worn in his secular days; he would dwell very fondly on the cut and trimmings of these clothes.  I think nothing misliked him in his profession but the gravity of dress required from a clerical person; and I was often tempted to ask, had his father been a tailor?  He made the most of his sober apparel, and loved to show a white, smooth, fat hand, with a fine diamond on one finger; but he was unhappy in an insignificant person and a foolish face, both of them something fatter than is graceful.

I do not know what first made me guess that all his boastings and paradings were intended to advance him in Althea’s good graces; but she refused to believe me when I said so.

‘Poor harmless wretch!’ said she; ’he is but practising with me; he would fain perfect himself in the airs and graces of a thriving wooer, before laying siege in earnest to some fair lady, with the heavy purse, that I lack, at her girdle.’