CHAPTER XXII. OF THE NEWS FROM HAVANT
Having given my orders that Covenant should be saddled and bridled by daybreak, I had gone to my room and was preparing for a long night’s rest, when Sir Gervas, who slept in the same apartment, came dancing in with a bundle of papers waving over his head.
‘ Three guesses, Clarke!’ he cried. ‘What would you most desire?’
‘ Letters from Havant,’ said I eagerly.
‘ Right,’ he answered, throwing them into my lap. ‘Three of them, and not a woman’s hand among them. Sink me, if I can understand what you have been doing all your life.
“ How can youthful heart resign
Lovely woman, sparkling wine?”
But you are so lost in your news that you have not observed my transformation.’
‘ Why, wherever did you get these?’ I asked in astonishment, for h
