‘She will,’ replied Dorothy.  ’And that she may show me no favour, here comes her husband, who shall bear a witness against me shall rouse in her all the malice of vengeance for her injured spouse, whom for his evil language, as thou shalt see, I have so silenced as neither thou nor any man can restore him to speech.’

While she spoke, Upstill, who had followed his enemy as the sole hope of deliverance, drew near, in such plight as the dignity of narrative refuses to describe.

‘Upstill,’ said Richard, ’what meaneth this?  Wherefore hast thou left thy post?  And above all, wherefore hast thou permitted this lady to pass unquestioned?’

Sounds of gurgle and strangulation, with other cognate noises, was all Upstill’s response.

‘Indeed, Mr. Heywood,’ said Dorothy, ’he was so far from neglecting his duty and allowing me to pass unquestioned, that he insulted me grievously, averring that I consorted with malignant rogues and papists, and worse—­the which drove me to punish him as thou seest.’

’Cast-down Upstill, thou hast shamed thy regiment, carrying thyself thus to a gentlewoman,’ said Richard.

‘Then he fired his carbine after me,’ said Dorothy.

‘That may have been but his duty,’ returned Richard.

‘And worst of all,’ continued Dorothy, ’he said that had he known what I should grow to, he would never have made shoes for me when I was an infant.  Think on that, master Heywood!’

‘Ask the lady to pardon thee, Upstill.  I can do nothing for thee,’ said Richard.

Upstill would have knelt, in lack of other mode of petition strong enough to express the fervour of his desires for release, but Dorothy was content to see him punished, and would not see him degraded.

‘Nay, master Upstill,’ she said, ’I desire not that thou shouldst take the measure of my foot to-night.  Prithee, master Heywood, wilt thou venture thy fingers in the godly man’s mouth for me?  Here is the key of the toy, a sucket which will pass neither teeth nor throat.  I warrant thee it were no evil thing for many a married woman to possess.  I will give it thee when thou marriest, master Heywood, though, good sooth, it were hardly fair to my kind!’

So saying she took a ring from her finger, raised from it a key, and directed Richard how to find its hole in the plum.

’There!  Follow us now to the farm, and find thy wife, for we need her aid,’ said Richard as he drew by the key the little steel instrument from Upstill’s mouth, and restored him to the general body of the articulate.

Thereupon he took Dick by the bridle, and Dorothy and he walked side by side, as if they had been still boy and girl as of old—­for of old it already seemed.

As they went, Richard washed both plum and ring in the dewy grass, and restored them, putting the ring upon her finger.

‘With better light I will one day show thee how the thing worketh,’ she said, thanking him.  ’Holding it thus by the ends, thou seest, it will bear to be pressed; but remove thy finger and thumb, and straight upon a touch it shooteth its stings in all directions.  And yet another day, when these troubles are over, and honest folk need no longer fight each other, I will give it thee, Richard.’