“Prosper”—­my father swung round on me—­“run you down to Billy and take him off to search for this clergyman.  If on your way you meet with your uncle and Mr. Knox, say that we shall require them, too, as witnesses.”

I ran down to the courtyard, but no Billy could I see; only the dejected groups of prisoners, and among them the one I had marked before, still fiercely striding, and still, at the wall, returning upon his track.  I hurried out to the gate, and there, to my amazement, found Billy in the clutches of a strapping impudent wench and surrounded by a ring of turnkeys, who were splitting their sides with laughter.

“I won’t!” he was crying.  “I’m a married man, I tell ’ee, and the father of twelve!”

“Oh, Billy!” I cried, aghast at the lie.

“There was no other way, lad.  For the Lord’s sake fetch Squire to deliver me?”

Before I could answer or ask what was happening, the damsel rounded on me.

“Boy,” she demanded, “is this man deceiving me?”

“As for that, ma’am,” I answered, “I cannot say.  But that he’s a bachelor I believe; and that he hates women I have his word over and over.”

“Then he shall marry me or fight me,” she answered very coolly, and began to strip off her short bodice.

“There’s twelve o’clock,” announced one of the turnkeys, as the first stroke sounded from the clock above us over the prison gateway.  “Too late to be married to-day; so a fight it is.”

“A ring! a ring!” cried the others.

I looked in Billy’s face, and in all my life (as I have since often reminded him) I never saw a man worse scared.  The woman had actually thrown off her jacket and stood up in a loose under-bodice that left her arms free—­and exceedingly red and brawny arms they were.  How he had come into this plight I could guess as little as what the issue was like to be, when in the gateway there appeared my uncle and Mr. Knox, and close at their heels a rabble of men and women arm-in-arm, headed by a red-nosed clergyman with an immense white favour pinned to his breast.

“Hey?  What’s to do—­what’s to do!” inquired Mr. Knox.

The clergyman thrust past him with a “Pardon me, sir,” and addressed the woman.  “What’s the matter, Nan?  Is the bridegroom fighting shy?”

“Please your reverence, he tells me he’s the father of twelve.”

“H’m.”  The priest cocked his head on one side.  “You find that an impediment?”

“And a married man, your reverence.”

“Then he has the laughing side of you, this time,” said his reverence, promptly, and took snuff.  “Tut, tut, woman—­down with your fists, button up your bodice, and take disappointment with a better grace.  Come, no nonsense, or you’ll start me asking what’s become of the last man I married ye to.”

“Sir,” interposed my uncle, “I know not the head or tail of this quarrel.  But this man Priske is my brother’s servant, and if he told the lady what she alleges, for the credit of the family I must correct him.  In sober truth he’s a bachelor, and no more the father of twelve than I am.”