“I vow,” said Dame Crane, “I think Jack Hostler speaks like a good Christian and a faithful servant, who will spare neither body nor soul in his master’s service.  However, the devil has lifted him in time, for a Constable of the Hundred came hither this morning to get old Gaffer Pinniewinks, the trier of witches, to go with him to the Vale of Whitehorse to comprehend Wayland Smith, and put him to his probation.  I helped Pinniewinks to sharpen his pincers and his poking-awl, and I saw the warrant from Justice Blindas.”

“Pooh—­pooh—­the devil would laugh both at Blindas and his warrant, constable and witch-finder to boot,” said old Dame Crank, the Papist laundress; “Wayland Smith’s flesh would mind Pinniewinks’ awl no more than a cambric ruff minds a hot piccadilloe-needle.  But tell me, gentlefolks, if the devil ever had such a hand among ye, as to snatch away your smiths and your artists from under your nose, when the good Abbots of Abingdon had their own?  By Our Lady, no!—­they had their hallowed tapers; and their holy water, and their relics, and what not, could send the foulest fiends a-packing.  Go ask a heretic parson to do the like.  But ours were a comfortable people.”

“Very true, Dame Crank,” said the hostler; “so said Simpkins of Simonburn when the curate kissed his wife,—­’They are a comfortable people,’ said he.”

“Silence, thou foul-mouthed vermin,” said Dame Crank; “is it fit for a heretic horse-boy like thee to handle such a text as the Catholic clergy?”

“In troth no, dame,” replied the man of oats; “and as you yourself are now no text for their handling, dame, whatever may have been the case in your day, I think we had e’en better leave un alone.”

At this last exchange of sarcasm, Dame Crank set up her throat, and began a horrible exclamation against Jack Hostler, under cover of which Tressilian and his attendant escaped into the house.

They had no sooner entered a private chamber, to which Goodman Crane himself had condescended to usher them, and dispatched their worthy and obsequious host on the errand of procuring wine and refreshment, than Wayland Smith began to give vent to his self-importance.

“You see, sir,” said he, addressing Tressilian, “that I nothing fabled in asserting that I possessed fully the mighty mystery of a farrier, or mareschal, as the French more honourably term us.  These dog-hostlers, who, after all, are the better judges in such a case, know what credit they should attach to my medicaments.  I call you to witness, worshipful Master Tressilian, that nought, save the voice of calumny and the hand of malicious violence, hath driven me forth from a station in which I held a place alike useful and honoured.”

“I bear witness, my friend, but will reserve my listening,” answered Tressilian, “for a safer time; unless, indeed, you deem it essential to your reputation to be translated, like your late dwelling, by the assistance of a flash of fire.  For you see your best friends reckon you no better than a mere sorcerer.”