And now when I look back over my paper—­lord! what a pother of writing about it and about!  But my excuse is that many young lads and gay bachelors will read this tale, so I desire to import what of instruction I can into it.  And not having the learning of the clerks, I must e’en put in what wisdom I have gotten for myself in my passage through the world.  For I never could plough with another man’s heifer—­least of all with that of a college-bred Mess John.  Not but what Mess John knoweth somewhat of the lear of love also among the well-favored dames of the city.  Or else, by my faith, Mess John is sorely belied.

But where was I in my tale?  And if this present errant discourse be forgiven, surely I will not transgress again, but drive my team straight to the furrow’s end and then back again, like an honest ploughman that has his eye ever upon the guide-poles on the windy ridge.

Well, the Little Playmate lifted a toad from her waist—­I mean my hand—­and dropped it as far from her as her arm would reach.

And then after that she ran up-stairs, slammed the door of her own chamber, and came not down to our nooning, so that old Hanne had to call her three times.

And once, when I had occasion to cross the court-yard to the guard-house, I saw her standing pensively by the window.  But so soon as she saw me she vanished within and was seen no more.

Yet, indeed and indeed, as all may see, there was no cause for all this fret.  For I cared no more about Christian’s Elsa than about Christian himself—­less, indeed, for Christian was a good soldier and master-at-arms, and taught me how to handle the match-lock, the pistolet, and the other new weapons that had begun to come in from France.  And often upon Saturdays and wet days he would let me spend long mornings in the armory with him, oiling and cleaning the ordnance.  Which it certainly was a great pleasure to do.

And what if the little dumpling Elsa, with her red cheeks and her babyish eyes, did run in and out.  Her father was ever with us, and even had I been willing there was no opportunity for more than a word or a touch of her fingers—­well, save once, when her father went himself to seek the bottle of oil she had been sent to fetch, and was some time in finding it.  But even that was a mere nothing, and might have happened to any one.

But when I came home again that night, you would have thought that the whole happening had been printed legibly on my face.  The Little Playmate would not let me come within a hundred miles of her.  And it was “Keep your distance, sirrah!” Not perhaps said in words, but expressed as clearly by the warlike angle of an arm, the contumelious hitch of a shoulder, or the scornful sweep of an adverse skirt.

And all about nothing!  Mighty Hector!  I never saw such things as women.

And yet in her good moments she would call me “Great Brother,” and tell me that she thought only of my future welfare, desiring that I should not compromise myself in any entanglement with such as were not worthy of me.  Oh, a most wise and prudent counsellor was the Playmate in these days.