So while Master Freake was making a fine
sprose about me, much more applicable to Achilles or the Chevalier Bayard,
I slipped off and fetched the hat and coat. He was just concluding his
story on my return, and without interrupting him, I clumsily thrust the
hat on her head and flung the coat over her shoulders.
"Master Freake," she said, in her sweetest bantering tones, "my servant,
as he absurdly calls himself, is really an artist in helping people. I
told him this morning that his native shire was his conjurer's hat, when
he fetched ham and eggs out of it for poor hungry me. Now he observes that
I am coatless and a-cold, and lo, a hat is on my head and a coat on my
shoulders. It is marvellous and nothing short of it. Nay, I shall shun him
as one in league with the powers of darkness if there's much more of it.
If I be saved, you remember Master Slender,"--this in a sly aside to me,
--"I'll be saved by them that have the fear of God."
"Ingrate!" I cried, half angry and yet wholly delighted; "what of marvel
or devilment is there in picking up a hat and coat one has found lying
under a tree?"
"Major Tixall's," said Master Freake.
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