"My good fortune pursues me, fair Mistress Judith," said he (but with a watchful eye on the dog), "that I should so soon again have an opportunity of meeting with you. But perchance your protector is jealous? He likes not strangers?"
"A lamb, sir--a very lamb!" Judith said, and she patted the dog and coaxed him, and got him into a more friendly--or at least neutral and watchful--frame of mind.
"I marvel not you have come forth on such a morning," said he, regarding the fresh color in her face. "'Tis a rare morning; and 'tis a rare chance for one that is a prisoner, as it were, that his dungeon is not four walls, but the wide spaces of Warwickshire. Will you go further? May I attend you?"
"Nay, sir," said she, "I but came forth to look at the country, and see what blossoms I could carry back to my father; I will go as far as the stile there, and rest a few minutes, and return."
"'Tis like your kindness, sweet lady, to vouchsafe me a moment's conversation; a book is but a dull companion," said he, as they walked along to the stile that formed part of a boundary hedge. And when they reached it she seated herself on the wooden bar with much content, and the mastiff lay down, stretching out his paws, while the young gentleman stood idly--but not carelessly--by. He seemed more than ever anxious to interest his fair neighbor, and so to beguile her into remaining.
"A dull companion," he repeated, "it is. One would rather hear the sound of one's voice occasionally. When I came along here this morning I should have been right glad even to have had a she shepherd say 'Good Morrow' to me----"
"Nay, 'tis a book the wits in London have much merriment over just now--a guide-book for the use of foreigners coming to this country--and there be plenty of them at present, in the train of the ambassadors. Marry, the good man's English is none of the best. '_For to ask the Way_' is a chapter of the book; and the one traveller saith to the other, '_Ask of that she shepherd_'--in truth the phrase hath been caught up by the town. But the traveller is of a pleasant and courteous turn; when that he would go to bed, he saith to the chambermaid: 'Draw the curtains, and pin them with a pin. My she friend, kiss me once, and I shall sleep the better. I thank you, fair maiden.' Well, their English may be none of the best, but they have a royal way with them, some of those foreigners that come to our court. When the Constable of Castile was at the great banquet at Whitehall--doubtless you heard of it, sweet Mistress Judith?--he rose and drank the health of the Queen from a cup of agate of extraordinary value, all set with diamonds and rubies, and when the King had drank from the same cup the Constable called a servant, and desired that the cup should be placed on his Majesty's buffet, to remain there. Was't not a royal gift? And so likewise he drank the health of the King from a beautiful dragon-shaped cup of crystal all garnished with gold; but he drank from the cover only, for the Queen, standing up, drank the pledge from the cup itself; and then he would have that in turn transferred to her buffet, as he had given the other one to the King."