The Sign of the Red Cross | Page 7

in the open streets!"
"How dare you speak so to your brother, girl?" cried Madam, bristling
up like an angry mother hen. "What call have you to chide him? Is he
answerable to you for his acts?"
Gertrude subsided into silence, for she could not answer back as she
would have liked. It was not for her to argue with her mother; and
Madam, having vanquished her daughter, turned upon her son.
"You must have a care how you vex our neighbours, for your father
would take it ill an he heard of it. Nay, I would not myself that you
mixed yourself up too much with them. They are honest good folks
enow, but scarce such as are fitting company for us. What of this girl
Dorcas? Is not she the one who is waiting maid to that mad old witch
woman in Allhallowes, Lady Scrope?"

"That may well be. I saw her come forth from a grim portal hard by
Allhallowes the Less. I knew not who it was, but I gave chase, and ere
she put her foot upon the bridge, I had plucked the hood from off her
pretty curls, and had kissed her soundly on both cheeks. And at that she
gave me such a cuff as I feel yet, and ran like a fawn, and I after her, till
she vanished within the door of our neighbour's house; and then it came
to me that it was Dorcas, grown wondrous pretty since I last took note
of her. If she comes always home at this hour, I'll waylay my lady again
and take toll of her."
"You had better be careful not to let Reuben get wind of it" said
Gertrude, with suppressed anger in her voice. "If he were to catch you
insulting his sister, it is more than a slap or a cuff you would get."
Frederick burst into a boisterous laugh.
"What! do you think a dirty shopman would dare lay hands upon me?
I'd run him through the body as soon as look at him. He'd better keep
out of reach of my sword arm. You can tell him so, fair sister, if you
have a tendresse for the young counter jumper."
Gertrude's sensitive colour flew up, and her brother laughed loud and
long, pointing his finger at her, and adding one coarse jest to another;
but the mother interposed rather hastily, being uneasy at the turn the
talk was taking.
"Hist, children, no more of this!
"I would not that this tale came to your father's ears, Frederick; it were
better to have a care where our neighbours are concerned. Let the
wench alone. There are many prettier damsels than she, who will not
rebuff you in such fashion."
"Ay, verily, but that is the spice of it all. When the wench gives you
kiss for kiss, it is sweet, but flavourless. A box on the ear, and a merry
chase through the streets afterwards, is a game more to my liking. I'll
see the little witch again and be even with her, or my name's not
Frederick Mason the Scourer!"

"Your father will like it ill if it comes to his ears," remarked Madam,
with a touch of uneasiness; "and for my part, the less we have to do
with our neighbours the better. They are no fit associates for us."
"Say that we are no fit associates for them," murmured Gertrude,
beneath her breath.
Her heart was swelling with sorrow and anger. In her eyes there was no
young man in all London town to be compared with Reuben Harmer.
From the day when in childhood they had playfully plighted their troth,
she had never ceased to regard him as the one man in the world most
worthy of love and reverence, and she knew that he had never ceased to
look upon her with the same feelings.
Latterly they had had but scant opportunities of meeting. Madam threw
every possible obstacle in the way of her daughter's entering the doors
of that house, and kept her own closed against those of her former
friends whom she now chose to regard as her inferiors. Madam had
never been liked. She had always held her head high, and shown that
she thought herself too good for the place she occupied. Her house had
never been popular. No neighbours had ever been in the habit of
running in and out to exchange bits of news with her, or ask for the
loan of some recipe or household convenience. It had not been difficult
to seclude herself in her gradually increasing dignities, and only her
daughter had keenly felt the difference when she had intimated that she
wished the intimacy between her family and that of the Harmers to
cease.
Frederick had