A Boy's Ride Part 26

"Ay, and a bold one thou wilt be," was the response; "as bold as our lord who is in France."

All day they held slowly on their way, and, though they frequently met other travellers, they attracted no more attention than an occasional curious glance. And toward sundown they came to the town of Dunstable.

"Now," cried Humphrey, joyfully, "here be a town. Let us make haste to enter before the curfew and find an inn. We have had a long fast."

"Shall we not rather go to the priory?" asked Hugo.

"Nay, verily," answered Humphrey. "I go to no priory to-night. I will go to an inn, and I will have there a mighty supper, and a good bed, and no priestly duties to perform. I know not how to perform them if I would. And I proclaim to no man that we be counterfeits. And moreover, the priests here may be even as the parish priest of Oundle. Mayhap he will not set the pursuers on our track, but I trust him not. I trust no man who sendeth forth travellers with such a breakfast." So saying, he rode boldly down the main street which he had entered till he came to where it intersected another main street at right angles. There he stopped. "Here be inns in plenty," he said. "It must be this town is on the Watling Street." And he questioned the groom who came to take their tired horses.

"Yea," answered the groom. "This be the town of Dunstable. And here it is that the Watling Street crosseth the Icknield Street."

"_Pax vobisc.u.m_," said Humphrey. "I will in to the fire and my supper.

Do thou care well for the beasts." And, followed by Hugo, he strode off with a gait which was not often seen on a priest.

The inn which Humphrey had chosen displayed the sign of the Shorn Lamb, and was one of the smallest in the neighborhood; it made its patrons at home in its large kitchen while they waited for the meal to be served.

There was but one other guest in the room when Hugo and Humphrey entered, and the moment the faithful serving-man saw him he was grateful for his priest's garb; for the fierce little man who was giving orders in a peremptory manner was none other than Walter Skinner.

In great fear he had fled from Newark at the instance of the courtier, but his courage, after three days of wandering, had returned to him; for his hope of one day being a duke died hard. "Though I be the king's spy no longer," he had said to himself, "I have been the king's spy.

Therefore I have had a certain measure of preferment and may hope for more." And in this humor he had come into Dunstable by way of the Icknield Street, and by chance had chosen the very inn Humphrey had selected. That he had fled from Newark and was no longer in pursuit of them Humphrey did not know; and he, accordingly, withdrew deeper into the concealment of his hood, while Hugo did the same.

As for Walter Skinner, he looked at them with contempt. "Here cometh a beggarly priest and a novice," he thought, "to keep company at the table with me. I will none of it." And he said haughtily to the innkeeper: "Worthy host, I have no liking to priests. Seat them not at the table with me. Give me thy company, if it please thee, but serve the priest and his novice elsewhere."

The innkeeper happened to be in a surly humor. Certain affairs had gone contrary and vexed him. Therefore he made answer: "I keep but one table.

There may ye all feed or ye may look elsewhere. There be other inns."

And he added slowly and impressively, "They--be--all--full--also."

"Why, here be a circ.u.mstance!" cried Walter Skinner. "The inns of this town be full, sayest thou? Why, all the inns in London be not full, I warrant thee. And why should they be full here in this bit of a town, with one street running this way, and one another way, like a cross? I would have thee to know that I have been servant to the king, and am used to be served accordingly."

"And what service hast thou done the king?" demanded the surly innkeeper, unbelievingly.

"I did watch from the top of the high tree the De Aldithely castle,"

was the boastingly given answer. "I did see the young lord and his serving-man flee through the postern and enter the wood." He was about to rehea.r.s.e all the particulars of his pursuit of the runaways when the innkeeper interrupted him.

"Thou must, then," said he, "be the spy for whom the king is looking, and I will give thee to him."

"Nay, nay," said Walter Skinner, his fierceness all gone as he suddenly remembered the warning given him in Newark by the courtier who had set him free. "That thou mayest not do. I do journey toward the south. Thou mayest not delay me."

"I could if I would," returned the innkeeper, his surly mood vanis.h.i.+ng as he saw before him the opportunity of enjoying himself by tormenting somebody. "But thou art such a sprat of a man that my compa.s.sion forbids me. The king looketh for thee to hear thee tell what thou knowest of the whereabouts of the young lord and his companion. If thou canst not tell, he will have thy head; so hath he sworn. For he is in an evil rage, and heads are as nothing to him when he rageth, as thou knowest. He searcheth also for the bailiff who had thee in charge and let thee escape. I warrant thee the bailiff hath a wit too sound to go proclaiming how he was some great man, even a bailiff in the town of Newark."

All this was lost on Walter Skinner, however, who grasped but one thought, that he was in danger, and had but one anxiety, how to escape it. He turned now with some degree of humility to Humphrey.

"What!" said the innkeeper. "Dost thou turn to the beggarly priest whom thou erstwhile didst despise? But it shall not avail thee. It is with me that thou must deal. Knowest thou that I might lose my head for harboring thee, if I give thee not up? But I will hide thee, my little sprat, so that the king himself would not know thee. Come with me."

The little spy, his importance all gone, did as the burly innkeeper bade him, and Hugo and Humphrey were left alone in the kitchen with the servants.

"What do we?" asked Humphrey, in a low tone. "Flee?"

"Nay," replied Hugo. "That were to invite pursuit."

"This innkeeper is a knave," said Humphrey.

"The more reason for caution," answered Hugo.

"I have heard that some priests be great sleepers and great eaters,"

said Humphrey a few moments later.

"Some priests be," agreed Hugo.

"Then I be one of them. I do now drowse in my chair, and naught but the call to supper shall awake me. And then will I play so busily with my food that no words can escape me save _pax vobisc.u.m_. This rascal innkeeper learns naught of me."

Presently back came the innkeeper with Walter Skinner in his turn playing scullion. "Here, sir priest," cried the innkeeper. "Here is he who shall serve thee at thy meal."

But there was no response. The priest's head was sunk on his breast, and he seemed asleep. His novice also appeared to sleep.

The innkeeper, emboldened, now gazed openly and curiously at the two.

"They have not come far," he said to himself. "Their garments be not travel-stained enough for that. They be some dullards of small wit on their first journey, for the groom did say they knew not that this was Dunstable."

His observations were here cut short by the appearance of three other travellers; but their entrance failed to arouse the priest and his novice, who remained, as before, apparently asleep.

"Yea, verily," thought the innkeeper, as he slowly advanced to meet the newcomers, "they be but two dullards. There is neither game nor gain to be made of them as there is of this Walter Skinner, from whom I will take his horse before I let him go. I will e'en bid priest and novice pack to make room for these newcomers, from whom I may win something, and to save room for others who may come."

Accordingly he set to work, but it was with great difficulty that he roused the two. "_Pax vobisc.u.m_," murmured Humphrey, sleepily. "Is the supper ready?"

"Yea, but at some other inn," returned the innkeeper. "Here be three worthy people just come in. There is not room for them and ye. The groom bringeth your horses, and ye must go." Without a word of objection Hugo and Humphrey rose to do the innkeeper's bidding and depart. But they walked like men half awake, and followed the innkeeper stumblingly; and mounted their horses clumsily, to the great merriment of the groom. It was now dark, and they knew not which way to turn. "I choose not another inn," said Humphrey, "though we bide supperless in the streets."

"Then choose I," returned Hugo. And he rode off down the street with Humphrey close beside him.

"Lad, lad!" cried the serving-man, "thou must not lead. It will betray us."

At once Hugo fell behind, and the two rode on until, at a little inn called the Blue Bell, the boy bade the serving-man stop. The two alighted, gave their horses to the groom, went in, were promptly served a good supper, and, in due time, were shown to their beds.

"There be dangers on the Watling Street as well as in the fen," said Humphrey.

In the meanwhile the keeper of the Shorn Lamb was having his enjoyment at the expense of Walter Skinner. He bade him serve the three strangers and fear nothing, as no one would recognize him in the guise of a scullion.

"Why, here didst thou come strutting it finely," said the innkeeper, in a mocking tone. "And dost thou strut now? Nay, verily; but thou art as meek as any whipped c.o.c.k. And since it was by thy strut that men did recognize thee, how shall they make thee out when thy fine strut is gone? Wherefore serve the strangers, and be not afraid."

In spite of this exhortation the manner of Walter Skinner still betrayed doubt, and even timidity. And at last he made the innkeeper understand that it was he whom he feared and not the strangers.

The innkeeper laughed. "Dost fear me?" he said. "Why, thou needst not--that is, thou needst not if thou observest my conditions. Thou hast a horse that thou needest not, since thou hast legs of thine own.

Somewhat short they be, and somewhat stiff in the joints, being more made to strut with than for the common gait of mankind. Still I doubt not they will carry thee whither thou wouldst go after I have dismissed thee. Serve the strangers, therefore, and afterward thou shalt sup."

In great meekness Walter Skinner obeyed, and the innkeeper, observing him, sat down later with satisfaction to his own meal.

Now it chanced that the strangers had ordered liquor, and Walter Skinner paused in the bringing of it long enough to take a drink of it and fill up the measure again with water. And in a few moments his fears were gone. He surrept.i.tiously drank again, and yet again, for the strangers were convivial. And, by the time they were served and his task done, he had forgotten his danger and remembered only the injustice of the innkeeper.

"What!" he said to himself. "Here be a degradation! Here be a putting of fine metal to base uses! I who have been servant to the king am made a scullion to traveling strangers who be drunken, moreover, and fit only to be served by this rascal innkeeper who hath made a scullion of me. And shall he have my horse also? Nay, he shall not. I will away to the stables this moment and set out and gain my liberty."