'
'No, my lord; I should have had to turn philosopher.'
'A fair hit, Tom! But tell me, why wast thou afeard of mistress
Dorothy?'
'It might have come to a quarrel in some sort, my lord; and there is
one thing I have remarked in my wanderings through this valley of
Baca' said Tom, speaking through his nose, and lengthening his face
beyond even its own nature, 'namely, that he who quarrels with a
woman goes ever to the wall.'
'One thing perplexes me, Tom: if thou sawest mistress Dorothy in the
court with the roundhead, how came she thereafter, thinkest thou,
locked up in his chamber?'
'It behoves that she went into it again, my lord.'
'How knowest thou she had been there before?'
'Nay, I know not, my lord. I know nothing of the matter.'
'Why say'st it then? Take heed to thy words, Tom. Who then, thinkest
thou, did lock the door upon her?'
'I know not, my lord, and dare hardly say what I think. But let your
lordship's wisdom determine whether it might not be one of those
demons whereof the house hath been full ever since that night when I
saw them rise from the water of the moat--that even now surrounds
us, my lord!--and rush into the fountain court.
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