The Heart

"Madam," said I as low as might be, "do you remember the day?"

"And wherefore should I not?" asked she with a toss of her gold

locks and a pout of her red lips which was childishness and

wilfulness itself, but there went along with it a glance of her eyes

which puzzled me, for suddenly a sterner and older spirit of resolve

seemed to look out of them into mine. "Think you I am in my dotage,

Master Wingfield, that I remember not the day?" said she, "and think

you that I am going deaf that I hear not the church bells?"

"If we miss the service for the unlading of the goods, and it be

discovered, it may go amiss with us," said I.

"Are you then afraid, Master Wingfield?" asked she with a glance of

scorn, and a blush of shame at her own words, for she knew that they

were false.

I felt the blood rush to my face, and I reined back my horse, and

said no more.

"I pray you have the goods that you know of unladen at once, Captain

Tabor," said she, and she made a motion that would have been a stamp

had she stood.

Calvin Tabor laughed, and cast a glance of merry malice at me, and

bowed low as he replied: "The goods shall be unladen within the hour, Mistress," said he,

"and if you and the gentleman would rather not tarry to see them for

fear of discovery--"

"We shall remain," said Mistress Mary, interrupting peremptorily.

"Then," said Captain Calvin Tabor with altogether too much of

freedom as I judged, "in case you be brought to account for the work

upon the Sabbath, 'The Golden Horn' hath wings for such a wind as

prevails to-day as will outspeed all pursuers, even should they

borrow wings of the cherubim in the churchyard."

I was glad that Mistress Mary did not, for all her youthfulness of

temper, laugh in return, but answered him with a grave dignity as if

she herself felt that he had exceeded his privilege.

"I pray you order the goods unladen at once, Captain Tabor," she

repeated. Then the captain coloured, for he was quick-witted to

scent a rebuff, though he laughed again in his dare-devil fashion as

he turned to the sailors and shouted out the order, and straightway

the sailors so swarmed hither and thither upon the deck that they

seemed five times as many as before, and then we heard the hatches

flung back with claps like guns.