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 pass 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 passengers. Trains of packhorses
were going down to London. And just as they reached St. Albans came a
nobleman 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 passing 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 nobleman's party. They
passed 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 grass 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 vobiscum_," 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
vobiscum_," 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."
Hugo and Humphrey looked at each other. Then Humphrey said, "I know
not, after all, whether to come in or not."
"Come in! come in!" cried the old man, eagerly. "I must share thy luck,
and that could I not do if I played thee false. Come in!"
Still hesitating, Humphrey glanced about him. He knew not who might be
on his track. And then he decided to go in.
"No matter who knocketh while I be gone," said the old man, earnestly,
"give heed to none. Only when I come and knock four times: one for
thee, one time for the lad, and two times for the two horses, which
signifieth that I know ye; listen close. And when I say 'mole,' open
the door softly and not over wide."
Humphrey, who with Hugo was now within the hut, promised to obey, and
the old man, closing the door after him, departed with the horses.
At once Humphrey put out the smoking embers of the fire burning on the
earthen floor in the centre of the hut. "If any knock and see the smoke
and hear no answer, will they not break in the door?" he said.
The old man had been gone but a short time when a tramp of horses was
heard. The riders paused before the door of the hut as Humphrey had
done, and one of them knocked heavily upon it with his stick. But there
was no answer. Again there came a knock and a cry, "Open, old
Bartlemy!"
Meanwhile, old Bartlemy had come creeping cautiously back, and from
behind a screen of vines which hung from an oak beheld them. "Ay, ye
may knock and cry," he muttered craftily; "but which one of ye hath a
mole near the end of his nose? Not one of ye. Therefore I will have
none of ye. And ye may be gone."
"The old rascal groweth deaf," said one of the riders.
"Nay," answered the second. "There cometh no smoke out of the roof. He
is doubtless from home for the night."
Old Bartlemy hastily glanced toward the roof of the hut. He had left a
smouldering fire, and now no fire was there. "The false priest hath put
it out," he said joyfully. "Now know I that he hath luck with him, and
I will serve him faithfully. Ay, knock!" he continued. "Knock thy fill.
I did but now hear thee call me 'old rascal,' though I have helped thee
to thy desires many times, for which thou didst pay me by ever
threatening to bring the ranger upon me for the game I take to keep me
alive. Thou wantest naught of old Bartlemy but to further thine own
schemes."
There was silence a moment, and then the first speaker said, "The
priest of Oundle hath cheaply bought his altar cloth if we find not
these two. We know they be between St. Albans and London. And we do
know they be, for the present, gone from the Watling Street, for the
carter from London whom we did meet did tell us that he had met them
not on the way. Therefore go thou to London by way of the Ermine
Street, while I go down by the Watling Street. They may be now straying
about in the wood, but we shall have them on one road or the other as
they go into the city. The false priest rideth a gray, and the young
lord a black. We shall have them without Bartlemy's aid, fear not."
Then the riders withdrew, each going his way, and Bartlemy a few
moments later knocked on the door of the hut and was admitted by
Humphrey. At once the old man made up the fire in the centre of the hut
again.
"What doest thou?" demanded Humphrey. "Wouldst have other visitors?"
"Do not thou fear," responded Bartlemy. "Am I not here? And can I not
hide thee and the lad beneath yon heap of rushes if a stranger come? No
man will look for thee here. They that seek thee think that Bartlemy
will aid them; and so he would but for thy mole. I be an old man, and
never yet hath fortune come my way, and all because I did not before
meet thee. For it hath been foretold me that a man having a mole near
the end of his nose would bring me fortune. Wherefore I cleave to thee,
and will protect thee with my life, if need be." So saying, he threw
another fagot on the fire and, from a hidden cupboard, brought out a
substantial meal of venison and bread. When the meal was finished he
commanded: "Lie down and rest now, thou and the lad, while I keep
watch. Thou wilt need thy wits on the morrow."
Humphrey reflected. Then he turned to Hugo. "Lie down, lad," he said
kindly. "The old man is crazed when he talketh of moles, but he is
right when he saith we have need of our wits on the morrow. And that
meaneth we must rest in faith to-night."
The old man smiled triumphantly. "I be not so crazed as thou thinkest,
neither," he said. "Thy mole is not only thy good fortune, but mine
also." With that he put the remains of the meal back in the cupboard,
shut the door, and replenished the fire. He then threw himself down on
the earthen floor beside it, and lay there grinning and grimacing at
the flames till Hugo and Humphrey fell asleep. A dozen times before
dawn old Bartlemy rose to bend over the two, grinning and grimacing as
he did so, and clasping his hands in ecstasy. But when the two awoke he
was gone.
Humphrey, when he discovered Bartlemy's absence, started up in alarm.
"I did get no dream, lad," he said to Hugo, whom his movements had
aroused; "and the old man is gone. I know not what to do."