One evening in April in the year 1308, Tirechair came home in a
remarkably bad temper. For three days past everything had been in good
order on the King's highway. Now, as an officer of the peace, nothing
annoyed him so much as to feel himself useless. He flung down his
halbert in a rage, muttered inarticulate words as he pulled off his
doublet, half red and half blue, and slipped on a shabby camlet
jerkin. After helping himself from the bread-box to a hunch of bread,
and spreading it with butter, he seated himself on a bench, looked
round at his four whitewashed walls, counted the beams of the ceiling,
made a mental inventory of the household goods hanging from the nails,
scowled at the neatness which left him nothing to complain of, and
looked at his wife, who said not a word as she ironed the albs and
surplices from the sacristy.

"By my halidom," he said, to open the conversation, "I cannot think,
Jacqueline, where you go to catch your apprenticed maids. Now, here is
one," he went on, pointing to a girl who was folding an altar-cloth,
clumsily enough, it must be owned, "who looks to me more like a damsel
rather free of her person than a sturdy country wench. Her hands are
as white as a fine lady's! By the Mass! and her hair smells of
essences, I verily believe, and her hose are as find as a queen's. By
the two horns of Old Nick, matters please me but ill as I find them
here."

The girl colored, and stole a look at Jacqueline, full of alarm not
unmixed with pride. The mistress answered her glance with a smile,
laid down her work, and turned to her husband.