A Boy's Ride Part 27

n.o.body noticed him as he went out the kitchen door, and n.o.body saw him as he entered the stable and prepared his horse for the journey. And, still unnoticed, he mounted, after many a crazy lurch, and set off down the street. In due time he came to the gate, and the watchman challenged him.

"Dost stop me, sirrah!" demanded the half-drunken Walter Skinner. "I be the servant of the king; and, moreover, I be but just come from the inn of the Shorn Lamb. Pa.s.s me outside the walls."

The watchman, at the mention of the Shorn Lamb, made haste to lead the horse through the narrow side gate, for he and the innkeeper were confederates in villany; and away went Walter Skinner at a great pace toward London.

CHAPTER XXI

Knowing nothing of the escape of their old enemy, Hugo and Humphrey arose the next morning and, after paying their reckoning, departed without having incurred the suspicion of any one in the town.

"This cometh of leaving the inn of the Shorn Lamb in good season,"

observed Humphrey, with satisfaction.

"I did think we were put out of the inn," said Hugo, demurely.

"Ay, lad," agreed Humphrey; "thou art right. If all who go to the Shorn Lamb were thus put out, and so did leave in good season, there would be fewer lambs abroad without their fleece. Didst see Walter Skinner in the guise of the scullion?"

"Yea," answered Hugo.

"If I be so good a priest as he is a scullion, I fear detection from no man. Why, he doth look to be a good scullion, whereas when he is clad as the king's spy, he looketh a very poor spy; and he doth act the part moreover very lamentably. We had come badly off had he been as good a spy as he is a scullion."

"Ay, and had he been less drunken," said Hugo.

"Thou hast well said, lad," agreed Humphrey. "Let a man that would have ill success in what he undertaketh but befuddle his wit with drink, and ill success he will have, and that in good measure. And the scorn and contempt of his fellows, moreover, even as hath this little spy."

"And yet," observed Hugo, thoughtfully, "it were hard to find a man who is not at some time drunken."

"Hadst thou that from thine uncle, the prior?" asked Humphrey, quickly.

"Or didst thou gain it from thine own very ancient experience?"

"Now I have angered thee," said Hugo, frankly.

"Yea, lad, thou hast. This is a time of great drinking, that I know; but never have I seen my lord drunken. And never hath any man seen me drunken, nor my father, nor my grandsire. There be ever enough sober ones in the worst of times to keep the world right side uppermost. And that thou wilt find when thou hast lived to be forty years old. But thou art but fourteen, and I am foolish to be angered with thee for what is, after all, but lack of experience. How soon come we to this St. Albans?"

"Why, it is but thirteen miles from Dunstable," answered Hugo, pleasantly.

"Then may we pa.s.s it by without stopping," cried Humphrey, joyfully.

"And how much farther on lieth London?"

"Twenty miles," replied Hugo.

"Then do we rest in London to-night, if we may," said Humphrey. "Our horses be not of the best, but neither are they of the worst; and it were an ill beast that could not go thirty-three miles before sunset on the Watling Street."

"Ay," agreed Hugo. "But we may not ride too fast, else shall we arouse wonder."

Humphrey sighed. "Thou art right, lad," he said. "And wonder might lead to questions, and questions to a stopping of our journey. For how know I what answer to make to questions that I be not looking for? I will therefore go more slowly."

The road was now by no means empty of pa.s.sengers. Trains of packhorses were going down to London. And just as they reached St. Albans came a n.o.bleman with his retinue, going down to his town house in London. "So might my lord ride, but for the wicked king," said Humphrey, in a low tone, as they stood aside. Then pa.s.sing into the city of St. Albans, they at once sought an inn and made the early hour suit them for dinner that so they might journey on the sooner.

They had entered St. Albans in the rear of the n.o.bleman's party. They pa.s.sed out of it an hour later unnoticed in a throng of people. "And now," said Humphrey, looking back at the town on the slope, "let the priest at Oundle play us false if he like; we be safely through the town."

"It was near here that the Saxon pope, Adrian IV, was born," observed Hugo.

"Ay, lad," answered Humphrey, indifferently. "But I be nearing the place where I be a priest no longer. If we may not make too much haste, let us turn aside in the wood and find a hut where they will take us in for the night, and where, perchance, I may get a dream. 'Tis a mighty place, this London, and I would fain see what 'twere best to do."

Hugo made no objection, and when they were within ten miles of the great city they turned their horses to the left and sought shelter in Epping Forest.

"I like the wood," observed Humphrey, with satisfaction. "It seemeth a safer place than the Watling Street; for who knoweth what rascals ride thereon, and who be no more what they seem than we be ourselves?"

"Why, so they be no worse than we, we need not fear," returned Hugo, with a smile.

But Humphrey was not to be convinced. "I be forty years old," he said, "and what be safer than a tree but many trees? And the gra.s.s is under foot, and the sky above, and naught worse than robbers and wardens to be feared in the wood."

Hugo laughed. "And what worse than robbers on the Watling Street?" he asked.

"King's men, lad, king's men. A good honest robber of the woods will take but thy purse or other goods; but the king's man will take thee, and the king will take, perchance, thy life. I like not the Watling Street, nor care to see it more."

They were now going slowly through the wood in a bridle-path, one behind the other. Presently they came out into a glade, and across it, peeping from amid the trees, they descried a hut. "That be our inn for the night, if they will take us," said Humphrey, decisively. And, crossing the glade, he rode boldly up to the door and knocked.

The hut was very small and was made of wattle and daub. A faint line of smoke was coming from a hole in the roof. The knock with the end of Humphrey's stick was a vigorous one. Nevertheless it went so long without answer that he knocked again, and this time with better success. The door opened slowly a little way, and through the aperture thus made an old and withered face looked out.

"What wilt thou?" asked a cracked, high voice.

"Entrance and shelter for the night," replied Humphrey, promptly and concisely.

The door opened a little wider and the man within stepping outside, his person was revealed. He was of medium height and spare, and he wore a long gray tunic of wool reaching to his knees. Beneath this garment his lean legs were bare, while on his feet he wore shoes of skin which reached to the ankle, and which were secured by thongs. Such as he Hugo and Humphrey had often seen, but never before a face like his, in which craftiness and credulity were strangely mingled. For several minutes he stood there, first scrutinizing Humphrey and then Hugo.

At last Humphrey grew impatient. "Do we come in, or do we stay out?" he demanded.

"Why, that I hardly know," was the slow answer. "There be many rogues about; some in priests' robes and some not."

"Yea, verily," responded Humphrey, fervently; "but we be not of the number. _Pax vobisc.u.m_," he added, hastily. "I had well nigh forgot that," he said in an aside to Hugo.

But the old man's ears were keen, and he caught the aside meant for Hugo's ears alone. "Thou be but a sorry priest to forget thy _pax vobisc.u.m_," he said with a crafty look. "Perchance thou art no priest,"

he added, coming closer and peering into Humphrey's face.

He looked so long that Humphrey again grew impatient. "What seest thou on my face?" he asked.

"Why, I do see a mole on thy nose. It is a very small one, and of scant size, but because thou hast it thou mayest come down from thy horse, thou and the lad with thee, and I will give thee lodging for the night."

Instinctively Humphrey raised his hand and touched a tiny mole on the side and near the end of his nose. The man of the hut watched him. "I see thou knowest that a mole near the end of the nose is lucky," he said.

"Not I," declared Humphrey. "I had not before heard of such a thing."

The man of the hut regarded him pityingly. Then he said: "Come down from thy horse, thou unwitting lucky one, and come thou and the lad within while I do hide thy horses in a thick, for I would share thy luck. Dost not know that to show kindness to a lucky one is to share his fortune? Thou hadst not come within the hut but for thy mole, I warrant thee. For I do know that thou art the false priest and the young lord from Oundle that stopped not at St. Albans as ye were bid."