“Then the new Earl turned up an’ settled at Castle Cannick.  He was a wifeless man, an’, by the look o’t, had given up all wish to coax the female eye:  for he dressed no better’n a jockey, an’ all his diversion was to ride in to Tregarrick Market o’ Saturdays, an’ hang round the doorway o’ the Pack-Horse Inn, by A. Walters, and glower at the men an’ women passin’ up and down the Fore Street, an’ stand drinkin’ brandy an’ water while the horse-jockeys there my-lord’ed ‘en.  Two an’ twenty glasses, they say, was his quantum’ between noon an’ nine o’clock; an’ then he’d climb into saddle an’ ride home to his jewelled four-poster, cursin’ an’ mutterin’, but sittin’ his mare like a man of iron.

“But one o’ these fine market-days he did a thing that filled the mouths o’ the country-side.

“He was loafin’ by the Pack-Horse door, just as usual, at two o’clock, rappin’ the head o’ his crop on the side o’ his ridin’ boots, drawin’ his brows down an’ lookin’ out curses from under ’em across the street to the saddler’s opposite, when two drover-chaps came up the pavement wi’ a woman atween ’em.

“The woman—­or maid, to call her by her proper title—­was a dark-browed slut, wi’ eyes like sloes, an’ hair dragged over her face till she looked like an owl in an ivy-bush.  As for the gown o’ her, ‘twas no better’n a sack tied round the middle, wi’ a brave piece torn away by the shoulder, where one o’ the men had clawed her.

“There was a pretty dido goin’ on atween the dree, an’ all talkin’ together—­the two men mobbin’ each other, an’ the girl i’ the middle callin’ em every name but what they was chris’ened, wi’out distinction o’ persons, as the word goes.

“‘What’s the uproar?’ asks Ould Wounds, stoppin’ the tap-tap o’ his crop, as they comes up.

“‘The woman b’longs to me,’ says the first.  ’I’ve engaged to make her my lawful wife; an’ I won’t go from my word under two gallon o’ fourpenny.’

“‘You agreed to hand her over for one gallon, first along,’ says t’other,’ an’ a bargain’s a bargain.’

“Says the woman, ‘You’re a pair o’ hair-splitting shammicks, the pair of ‘ee.  An’ how much beer be I to have for my weddin’ portion?’ (says she)—­’for that’s all I care about, one way or t’other.’

“Now Ould Wounds looked at the woman; an’ ’tis to be thought he found her eyeable, for he axed up sharp—­

“’Would ‘ee kick over these two, an’ marry me, for a bottle o’ gin?’

“‘That would I.’

“‘An’ to be called My Lady—­Countess o’ Bellarmine?’

“‘Better an’ better.’

“’I shall whack ‘ee.’

“‘I don’t care.’

“‘I shall kick an’ cuff an’ flog ‘ee like a span’el dog,’ says he:  ’by my body!  I shall make ‘ee repent.’

“’Give ‘ee leave to try,’ says she.

“An’ that’s how th’ Earl o’ Bellarmine courted his wife.  He took her into the bar an’ treated her to a bottle o’ gin on the spot.  At nine o’clock that evenin’ she tuk hold of his stirrup-leather an’ walked beside ’en, afoot, up to Castle Cannick.  Next day, their banns were axed in church, an’ in dree weeks she was My Ladyship.