My uncle slashed his boot with his whip, and asked in wrath whether I had considered that blood would perchance be shed, and ended by counselling me kindly:  “So stay at home, little Margery!”

“I am as obedient as ever,” was my ready answer, “but whereas I am now well in the saddle, I will stay in the saddle.”

At this the old man knew not whether to take a jest as a jest, or to give me a stern order; and while he and the others were getting into their stirrups he said:  “Have done with folly when matters are so serious, madcap child!  We have enough to do to think of Ann, and more than enough!  So dismount, Margery, with all speed.”

“All in good time,” said I then, “I will dismount that minute when we have found Ann.  Till then the giant Goliath shall not move me from the saddle!”

Hereupon the old man lost patience, he settled himself on his big brown horse and cried out in a wrathfill and commanding tone:  “Do not rouse me to anger, Margery.  Do as I desire and dismount.”

But that moment he could more easily have made me to leap into the fire than to leave Ann in the lurch; I raised the bridle and whip, and as the bay broke into a gallop Uncle Conrad cried out once more, in greater wrath than before:  “Do as I bid you!” and I joyfully replied “That I will if you come and fetch me!” And my horse carried me off and away, through the open gate.

The gentlemen tore after me, and if I had so desired they would never have caught me till the day of judgment, inasmuch as that my Hungarian palfrey, which my Hans had brought for me from the stables of Count von Cilly, the father of Queen Barbara, was far swifter than their heavy hook-nosed steeds; yet as I asked no better than to seek Ann in all peace with them, and as my uncle was a mild and wise man, who would not take the jest he could not now spoil over seriously, I suffered them to gain upon me and we concluded a bargain to the effect that all was to be forgotten and forgiven, but that I was pledged to turn the bay and make the best of my way home at the first sign of danger.  And if the gentlemen had come to the stables in a gloomy mood and much fear, the wild chase after me had recovered their high spirits; and, albeit my own heart beat sadly enough, I did my best to keep of good cheer, and verily the sight of Kubbeling helped to that end.  He was to show us the way to the spot where he had found Eppelem, and was now squatted on a very big black horse, from which his little legs, with their strange gear of catskins, stuck out after a fashion wondrous to behold.  After we had thus gone at a steady pace for some little space, my confidence began to fail once more; even if Ann and her companion had been somewhat delayed by their search, still ought we to have met them by this time, if they had gone to the place without tarrying, and set forth to return unhindered.  And when, presently, we came to an open plot whence we might see a long piece of the