"
This was lightning from a clear sky, for unexpectedness; and the
relief of it was like pardon to a prisoner. She would remain to
deliver the goods, of course.
"Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is handsomely and successfully
ended, I will go home and report; and if ever another one--"
"I also am ready; I will go with thee."
This was recalling the pardon.
"How? You will go with me? Why should you?"
"Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think? That were dishonor.
I may not part from thee until in knightly encounter in the field
some overmatching champion shall fairly win and fairly wear me.
I were to blame an I thought that that might ever hap."
"Elected for the long term," I sighed to myself. "I may as well
make the best of it." So then I spoke up and said:
"All right; let us make a start."
While she was gone to cry her farewells over the pork, I gave that
whole peerage away to the servants. And I asked them to take
a duster and dust around a little where the nobilities had mainly
lodged and promenaded; but they considered that that would be
hardly worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave departure
from custom, and therefore likely to make talk. A departure from
custom--that settled it; it was a nation capable of committing any
crime but that. The servants said they would follow the fashion,
a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observance; they would
scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms and halls, and then the
evidence of the aristocratic visitation would be no longer visible.
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