Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/315

Rh that 'neighbors should be neighborly.' I had only one unpleasant meeting, and that was with a rough fellow who insisted upon giving me his company through a lonely part of a wood. But I made up my mind the fellow intended to rob me if he could, and so kept upon the alert. I still kept a stout cudgel I had cut to protect me from prowling curs, and when this villain, suddenly stopping in a thick piece of woods, demanded that I give him my money for 'safe-keeping,' I told him I believed my pennies were safer with me than with him; and when he came toward me, I remembered how much depended upon my being free, and so I had no scruple in poking him sharply with the end of my cudgel so as to knock his breath from him, and then taking to my heels. I recalled what you had told me, good Hugh, about striking with the end of my cudgel rather than with its side, and had reason to be glad of the lesson in fence, for I saw the low-browed ruffian no more. I hope he has recovered his breath by this time. Next I fell in with some kindly monks, the traveling performers of a Mystery play, and as our ways lay together, I traveled with them, and even took part in their performance. Their mystery-play was 'The Deluge,' and I was soon chosen to take the part of Noah's wife, the good monks saying that I acted the woman so naturally