“Get thee downstairs, thou drunken beast,” said Lambourne; “seest thou not the lady and I would be private?”

“Good sir, worthy sir!” said the Countess, addressing the jailer, “do but save me from him, for the sake of mercy!”

“She speaks fairly,” said the jailer, “and I will take her part.  I love my prisoners; and I have had as good prisoners under my key as they have had in Newgate or the Compter.  And so, being one of my lambkins, as I say, no one shall disturb her in her pen-fold.  So let go the woman:  or I’ll knock your brains out with my keys.”

“I’ll make a blood-pudding of thy midriff first,” answered Lambourne, laying his left hand on his dagger, but still detaining the Countess by the arm with his right.  “So have at thee, thou old ostrich, whose only living is upon a bunch of iron keys.”

Lawrence raised the arm of Michael, and prevented him from drawing his dagger; and as Lambourne struggled and strove to shake him off; the Countess made a sudden exertion on her side, and slipping her hand out of the glove on which the ruffian still kept hold, she gained her liberty, and escaping from the apartment, ran downstairs; while at the same moment she heard the two combatants fall on the floor with a noise which increased her terror.  The outer wicket offered no impediment to her flight, having been opened for Lambourne’s admittance; so that she succeeded in escaping down the stair, and fled into the Pleasance, which seemed to her hasty glance the direction in which she was most likely to avoid pursuit.

Meanwhile, Lawrence and Lambourne rolled on the floor of the apartment, closely grappled together.  Neither had, happily, opportunity to draw their daggers; but Lawrence found space enough to clash his heavy keys across Michael’s face, and Michael in return grasped the turnkey so felly by the throat that the blood gushed from nose and mouth, so that they were both gory and filthy spectacles when one of the other officers of the household, attracted by the noise of the fray, entered the room, and with some difficulty effected the separation of the combatants.

“A murrain on you both,” said the charitable mediator, “and especially on you, Master Lambourne!  What the fiend lie you here for, fighting on the floor like two butchers’ curs in the kennel of the shambles?”

Lambourne arose, and somewhat sobered by the interposition of a third party, looked with something less than his usual brazen impudence of visage.  “We fought for a wench, an thou must know,” was his reply.

“A wench!  Where is she?” said the officer.

“Why, vanished, I think,” said Lambourne, looking around him, “unless Lawrence hath swallowed her, That filthy paunch of his devours as many distressed damsels and oppressed orphans as e’er a giant in King Arthur’s history.  They are his prime food; he worries them body, soul, and substance.”