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By Root 3145 0

himself unsheathed their swords and had a mock fight. Back and forth on the green they went, with a display of skill such as, very likely, Minstead had never seen before, until at last Albion, who was taking the part of the Spaniard, let Nick win and gamely surrendered. And there was laughing and cheering on the echoing green, and Jane watching, half smiling, while Nick raised his sword high in the air and the afternoon sun glinted on his armour, just as he had hoped it would. For now his moment had come. Striding across the green to where Jane was standing, he stood in front of her and stuck his sword into the ground – she looked a bit surprised – and then he went down on one knee and her eyes opened very wide as he said: ‘Jane Furzey, will you marry me?’ Everyone heard it. She started to blush and a voice from somewhere called out: ‘That’s a fine offer, Jane.’ Other voices joined in, but they were listening, too.

He guessed she might say no just because he had taken her by surprise like that, so he looked straight up into her eyes to let her see that he loved her truly, and then he began to look just a little bit afraid himself, which worked very well because after only a moment’s more pausing, which was probably just for show, really, she said: ‘Well, I suppose I might.’

Then everybody cheered.

‘Name the day,’ he cried.

But now it was her turn to put him in his place, so she pursed her lips and looked around, and glanced at Albion and started to laugh. ‘When you’ve fought a real Spaniard, Nick Pride,’ she cried, ‘and not before!’

Which Albion told her was a very good answer.

The following morning Jane Furzey walked across to Burley. She hardly ever went over that way but her mother had heard there was a woman there who made lace, and she asked Jane to go and see if there might be work for one of her younger sisters. So Jane set off, taking her little dog Jack with her.

The morning was sunny. Passing by the Rufus tree she went westwards for a time, which quite soon led her across high heath, before turning down through woodland in the direction of Burley.

Jack was in his element. If he spotted a blackbird after a worm, he chased it. If he saw a patch of mud, or a pile of leaves, he rolled in them. Three red squirrels, in his opinion at least, were lucky to escape with their lives. By the time they came towards Burley his brown-and-white coat was black with mud and Jane was ashamed of him. She didn’t want to arrive at the lace maker’s cottage with her dog in this condition. ‘You’d better have a bath,’ she told him.

There were several ways to approach Burley from the Minstead direction, but the most pleasant, and also the cleanest, was along the great lawn from due east. For here there ran a clean, gravelly stream and, on each side of it, several hundred yards across and almost two miles in extent, stretched the broad, delightful swathe of close-cropped grass.

It was one of the largest of the forest’s great lawns. Partly dry, part marsh, it was grazed by cattle and ponies, and continued up to the edge of the village. Burley Lawn, it was called at the village end; but a few hundred yards further east a small mill had stood for a couple of generations and, from there, in its long eastward extension, it was known as Mill Lawn.

Having held a protesting Jack in the clear stream until he was clean, Jane had let him scamper along the short grass of Mill Lawn. Once or twice, out of bravado, he had made as if to chase a pony, but he was still clean as they passed the mill and came on to Burley Lawn. The ground was soggier here, so she made him keep to the dry path beside her; and confident that all was in good order she continued very cheerfully. There were clumps of small trees and gorse brakes dotting the lawn now. The woodland to right and left, with its small oaks and bushes of hazel, seemed to be edging closer. They passed a dark, gnarled little ash tree.

Then Jack saw the cat.

Jane saw it also, but a moment too late. ‘Jack!’ she shouted, but it was no good. He was off in a flash and there was no stopping him. A