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For a while it was all a hubbub—he proclaiming his fault and she rating him for it; till the Squire walked down from the terrace to see what had happened, and the dancers came crowding and questioning from the summer-tree. There had been a great gabble and rattle of tongues, in the midst of which the poor infant had lifted up her voice and cried lustily. The merrymakers laughed and hullooed and dug one another in the sides. They had drunk some good ale and their spirits were high, and it seemed to them the best thing in the world that Exalted Harman, who had condemned their sport, should stand before them confessing himself the father of a bastard.

In the end they had all joined hands and danced round him as if he were a maypole. Old Gervase laughed aloud and capered, as he remembered Exalted Harman, dressed in black, with a steeple-crowned hat on his head and a squalling brat in his arms, standing there with his eyes rolled up to heaven, while the boys and girls danced round him singing: "Pinch him, pinch him, black and blue . . ." He! He! He! It had been a famous sight, and he felt better for remembering it so well.