“I thought Sir Jovian had been a kind master,” said Harriet.

“This was not Sir Jovian.  Poor gentleman, he was not often out a-hunting.  This was one of the fine young rakish fellows from Lunnun as were always swarming about my Lady, like bees over that maybush.  Sir Thomas Donne, I think they called him.  They said he got killed by a wild boar, hunting in foreign parts, afterwards, and serve him right!  But there!  They would all do her bidding, whether for bad or good, so maybe it was less his fault than hers.  She is a bitter one, is my Lady, for all she looks so sweet.  And this her young barrowknight will be his own mother’s son, and I don’t want none of ’em down here.  ’Tis a good job we have your good papa, the Major, to stand between her and us; I only wish he had his own, for a rare good landlord he would be.”

The Dame’s vain wishes were cut short by shrieks from the poultry-yard, where Eugene was discovered up to his ankles in the black ooze of the horse-pond, waving a little stick in defiance of an angry gander, who with white outspread wings, snake-like neck, bent and protruded, and frightful screams and hisses, was no bad representation of his namesake the dragon, especially to a child not much exceeding him in height.

The monster was put to rout, the champion dragged out of the pond, breathlessly explaining that he only wanted to look at the goslings when the stupid geese cackled and the gander wanted to fly at his eyes.  “And I didn’t see where I was going, for I had to keep him off, so I got into the mud.  Will sister be angry?” he concluded, ruefully surveying the dainty little stockings and shoes coated with black mud.

But before the buckled shoon had been scraped, or the hosen washed and dried, the cheerful memory of boyhood had convinced itself that the enemy had been put to flight by his manful resistance; and he turned a deaf ear to Aurelia’s suggestion that the affair had been retribution for his constant oblivion of Comenius’ assertion that auser gingrit, “the goose gagleth.”

They went home more soberly, having been directed by Mrs. Jewel to a field bordered by a copse, where grew the most magnificent of Titania’s pensioners tall, wearing splendid rubies in their coats; and in due time the trio presented themselves at home, weary, but glowing with the innocent excitement of their adventures.  Harriet was the first to proclaim that they had seen a horseman who must be Sir Amyas.  “Had sister seen him?”

“Only through the window of the kitchen where I was making puff paste.”

“He called then!  Did my papa see him?”

“My father was in no condition to see any one, being under the hands and razor of Palmer.”

“La! what a sad pity.  Did he leave no message?”

“He left his compliments, and hoped his late partner was not fatigued.”

“Is he at the Great House?  Will he call again?”