“Touching her complexion,” answered the mercer, “I am not so special certain, but I marked that her fan had an ivory handle, curiously inlaid.  And then again, as to the colour of her hair, why, I can warrant, be its hue what it might, that she wore above it a net of green silk, parcel twisted with gold.”

“A most mercer-like memory!” said Lambourne.  “The gentleman asks him of the lady’s beauty, and he talks of her fine clothes!”

“I tell thee,” said the mercer, somewhat disconcerted, “I had little time to look at her; for just as I was about to give her the good time of day, and for that purpose had puckered my features with a smile—­”

“Like those of a jackanape simpering at a chestnut,” said Michael Lambourne.

“Up started of a sudden,” continued Goldthred, without heeding the interruption, “Tony Foster himself, with a cudgel in his hand—­”

“And broke thy head across, I hope, for thine impertinence,” said his entertainer.

“That were more easily said than done,” answered Goldthred indignantly; “no, no—­there was no breaking of heads.  It’s true, he advanced his cudgel, and spoke of laying on, and asked why I did not keep the public road, and such like; and I would have knocked him over the pate handsomely for his pains, only for the lady’s presence, who might have swooned, for what I know.”

“Now, out upon thee for a faint-spirited slave!” said Lambourne; “what adventurous knight ever thought of the lady’s terror, when he went to thwack giant, dragon, or magician, in her presence, and for her deliverance?  But why talk to thee of dragons, who would be driven back by a dragon-fly.  There thou hast missed the rarest opportunity!”

“Take it thyself, then, bully Mike,” answered Goldthred.  “Yonder is the enchanted manor, and the dragon, and the lady, all at thy service, if thou darest venture on them.”

“Why, so I would for a quartern of sack,” said the soldier—­“or stay:  I am foully out of linen—­wilt thou bet a piece of Hollands against these five angels, that I go not up to the Hall to-morrow and force Tony Foster to introduce me to his fair guest?”

“I accept your wager,” said the mercer; “and I think, though thou hadst even the impudence of the devil, I shall gain on thee this bout.  Our landlord here shall hold stakes, and I will stake down gold till I send the linen.”

“I will hold stakes on no such matter,” said Gosling.  “Good now, my kinsman, drink your wine in quiet, and let such ventures alone.  I promise you, Master Foster hath interest enough to lay you up in lavender in the Castle at Oxford, or to get your legs made acquainted with the town-stocks.”

“That would be but renewing an old intimacy, for Mike’s shins and the town’s wooden pinfold have been well known to each other ere now,” said the mercer; “but he shall not budge from his wager, unless he means to pay forfeit.”

“Forfeit?” said Lambourne; “I scorn it.  I value Tony Foster’s wrath no more than a shelled pea-cod; and I will visit his Lindabrides, by Saint George, be he willing or no!”