Jack didn't show his nose till next morning, and it was a queer reception he met.
"That was all foul play you gave," says the squire. "I'll never forgive you for the shock you gave me. But then I am so happy ever since, that I think I'll give you only one trial more. If you will take away the sheet from under my wife and myself to-night, the marriage may take place to-morrow."
"We'll try," says Jack, "but if you keep my bride from me any longer, I'll steal her away if she was minded by fiery dragons."
When the squire and his wife were in bed, and the moon shining in through the window, he saw a head rising over the sill to have a peep, and then bobbing down again.
"That's Jack," says the squire; "I'll astonish him a bit," says the squire, pointing a gun at the lower pane.
"Oh Lord, my dear!" says the wife, "sure, you wouldn't shoot the brave fellow?"
"Indeed, an' I wouldn't for a kingdom; there's nothing but powder in it."
Up went the head, bang went the gun, down dropped the body, and a great souse was heard on the gravel walk.
"Oh, Lord," says the lady, "poor Jack is killed or disabled for life."
"I hope not," says the squire, and down the stairs he ran. He never minded to shut the door, but opened the gate and ran into the garden. His wife heard his voice at the room door, before he could be under the window and back, as she thought.
"Wife, wife," says he from the door, "the sheet, the sheet! He is not killed, I hope, but he is bleeding like a pig. I must wipe it away as well as I can, and get some one to carry him in with me." She pulled it off the bed, and threw it to him. Down he ran like lightning, and he had hardly time to be in the garden, when he was back, and this time he came back in his shirt, as he went out.
"High hanging to you, Jack," says he, "for an arrant rogue!"
"Arrant rogue?" says she, "isn't the poor fellow all cut and bruised?"
"I didn't much care if he was. What do you think was bobbing up and down at the window, and sossed down so heavy on the walk? A man's clothes stuffed with straw, and a couple of stones."
"And what did you want with the sheet just now, to wipe his blood if he was only a man of straw?"
"Well, whether you wanted it or not, I threw it to you, and you standing outside o' the door."