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We have tickled one fish. Now for the other chub." Halfman, who had been swaying with silent merriment ever since the departure of Master Paul, suddenly grew steady again and looked warnings. "He asks for another kind of angling, as I gather," he suggested. Brilliana looked daintily wise. "As I bait the hook I believe I will land him.
"Friend," he said, "if we are both King's men we have no leisure for quarrel, however much our fingers may itch. What is your name, valiant?" The serving-man scowled at him for a moment; then his frown faded as he faced the smile and the bright, wild eyes of Halfman.
'Ah, Halfman, have I got you at last? You killed my daughters and helped your brothers to escape. What do you think I shall do with you? 'Whatever you like! said Halfman. 'Come into my house, then, said the ogress, and he followed her. 'Look here! she called to her husband, 'I have got hold of Halfman. I am going to roast him, so be quick and make up the fire!
The little company of three seemed, as it were, lost in the vastness of the chamber as they sat at meat together at the oak table by the hearth at one end of the room, Brilliana at the head, with Halfman at her right and Evander at her left as the guest and stranger.
And Halfman mounted his horse and rode home, and told his wife all he had seen, and the message sent by Mohammed Mohammed the son of Halfman, the son of the judge. There was once a king who had only one son, and this young man tormented his father from morning till night to allow him to travel in far countries.
Since then the Lady Brilliana had reigned alone at Harby, indifferent to suitors, and had flown the King's flag at the first point of war. "By Heaven!" said Halfman, "I will have a look at the Lady Brilliana." As he tramped the muddy hill-road his mind was busy.
"Come to the kitchen-garden, philosopher," he cried. "A fellow of your phlegm should find pleasure in the contemplation of cabbages." "It is a sage vegetable," Evander answered. "But I fear I tax your time. There must be much for you to do." "I have done much already," Halfman replied. "But, indeed, these be busy times."
Halfman, seeing how Brilliana leaned against the table, her face pale as her smock, raged at her daring denier. He stretched out his sword as if to marshal and restrain the passions of the Cavaliers. "Would it not be properer sport, sirs," he asked, "to tie him in a chair, like Guido Fawkes on November day, and take him through the village that loyal lads may pelt a traitor?"
Turning hurriedly to his companions, he said: "Friends, I have another toast for you. I give you the King's sweet warrior, Oxfordshire's blithe viceroy, 'The Lady of Loyalty House." "Never a better toast in the world," Halfman shouted. "Drink, gallants, drink." Brilliana crossed her fingers before her face. Through the living lattice her eyes peeped brightly.
"Call me no names," she squalled, "though you do call yourself captain, or I'll call you the son of a " However Mistress Satchell intended to finish her objurgation it was not given to the company to learn, for Halfman tripped up her speech with a nimble interruption. "The son of a pike, so please you," he suggested, with a smile that softened the virago's heart.
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