came. She summoned her woman, and bade her follow by post on
the morrow. The landlord she rewarded with a ring worth twenty
times the value of the service, and was led by him through a
side door into the innyard.

Here she found three horses, one equipped with the pillion on
which she was to ride behind a burly stableboy. The other two
were mounted by a couple of stalwart and well-armed men, one of
whom carried a funnel-mouthed musketoon with a swagger that
promised prodigies of valour.

Wrapped in her cloak, she mounted behind the stable-boy, and
bade him set out and take the road to Denham. Her dream was at
an end.

Master Quinn, the landlord, watched her departure with eyes
that were charged with doubt and concern. As he made fast the
door of the stableyard after she had passed out, he ominously
shook his hoary head and muttered to himself humble,
hostelry-flavoured philosophies touching the strange ways of
men with women, and the stranger ways of women with men. Then,
taking up his lanthorn, he slowly retraced his steps to the
buttery where his wife was awaiting him.

With sleeves rolled high above her pink and deeply-dimpled
elbows stood Mistress Quinn at work upon the fashioning of a
pastry, when her husband entered and set down his lanthorn with
a sigh.

"To be so plagued," he growled. "To be browbeaten by a slip of