Elliot kissed her quickly, and she fondled Elliot, and held a hand out over her shoulder to greet me.
"But where is my jackanapes, that should have been here to salute his mistress ?" Elliot cried.
"Out and alas!" said the old wife in our country tongue--"out and alas! for I have ill news.

The poor beast is missing these three days past, and we fear he is stolen away by some gangrel bodies, for the town is full of them.

There came two to our door, three days agone, and one was a blind man, and the other a one-armed soldier, maimed in the wars, and I gave them bite and sup, as a Christian should do.

Now, they had not been gone but a few minutes, and I was in the spence, putting away the dishes, when I heard a whistle in the street, and anon another.

I thought little of it, and so was about my business for an hour, when I missed the jackanapes.