"Not come!" he said, as he entered, talking over his shoulder to the landlord--"not come! That is strange enough. Why, I was kept more than half an hour at Barnsley Green to be the judge of a wrestling match. They would have me, God help us, so I was afraid they would be here before me. Well, give us a stoup of good liquor to discuss the time; I must not say give it of the best--the best is for my lord--but I do not see why the second best should not be for my lord's man; so let us have it quick, before these people come, and use your discretion as to the quality."
The wine that he demanded was soon supplied, and being set upon the table at which the peasant was seated, the lord's man took his place on the other side, and naturally looked for a moment in the face of his table-fellow; while the landlord stood by, with his fat stomach, over-hanging the board, and his eyes fixed upon the countenance of his new guest, to mark therein the approbation of his wine which he anticipated. The lord's man was not slow in proving the goodness of the liquor; but, without employing the horn cup, which the host set down beside the tankard, he lifted the latter to his mouth, drank a good deep draught, took a long sigh, drank again, and then nodded his head to the landlord, with a look expressive of perfect satisfaction.
After a few words between my host and his guest, in which Hardy took no part, but sat with his head bent over his ale, with the look of a man both tired and weakly, the landlord withdrew to his avocations, and the lord's man, fixing his eyes for a moment upon his opposite; neighbour, asked, in a kindly but patronising tone--
"What have you got there, ploughman? Thin ale,--isn't it? Come, take a cup of something better, to cheer thee. These are bad times, ar'n't they? Ay, I never yet met a delver in the earth that did not find fault with God's seasons. Here, drink that; it will make your wheat look ten times greener! Were I a ploughman, I'd water my fields with such showers as this, taken daily down my own throat. We should have no grumbling at bad crops then."
"I grumble not," replied the hunchback, taking the horn, and draining it slowly, sip by sip, "my crops grow green and plentiful. Little's the labour that my land costs in tillage, and yet I get a fat harvest in the season; and moreover, no offence, good sir, but I would rather be my own man and Heaven's, than any other person's."
"Not if you had as good a lord as I have," answered the serving-man, colouring a little, notwithstanding. "One is as free in his house as on Salisbury-plain; it's a pleasure to do his bidding. He's a friend, too, of the peasant and the citizen, and the good De Montfort. He's no foreign minion, but a true Englishman."
"Here's his health, then," said the peasant. "Is your lord down in these parts?"
"Ay, is he," replied the lord's man--"no farther off than Doncaster, and I am here to meet sundry gentlemen, who are riding down this way to York, to tell them that their assembling may not be quite safe there, so that they must fix upon another place."
"Ho, ho!" said the peasant, "some new outbreak toward, against the foreigners. Well, down with them, I say, and up with the English yeomen. But who have we here?--Some of those you come to seek, I'll warrant.--Let us look at their faces." And going round the table, with a slow, and somewhat feeble step, he placed his eye to one of the small lozenges of glass in the casement, and gazed out for a minute or two, while the serving-man followed his example, and took a survey of some new travellers who had arrived, before they were ushered into the general reception room.
"Do you know him?" asked the peasant. "I think I have seen that dark face down here before."
"Ay, I know him," answered the serving-man. "He's a kinsman of the Earl of Ashby, one of our people, whom I came principally to meet. He's a handsome gentleman, and fair spoken, though somewhat black about the muzzle."
"If his heart be as black as his face," said the peasant, "I would keep what I had got to say for the Earl's ears, before I gave it to his, were I in your place."
"Ha! say you so?" demanded the lord's man. "Methinks you know more of him, ploughman, than you tell us."
"Not much," replied the other, "and what I do know is not very good, so one must be careful in the telling."
"What keeps him, I wonder?" said the serving-man, after having returned to the table, and sipped some more of his wine.
"He's toying without, I'll aver," said the peasant, "with pretty Kate, the landlord's daughter. He had better not let young Harland, the franklin's son, see him, or his poll and a crab-stick cudgel may be better acquainted. It had well-nigh been so three months ago, when he was down here last."
These words were said in an undertone, for while one of two servants, who had accompanied the subject of their discourse, led away the horses to the stable, and the other kept the landlord talking before the inn, there was a sound of whispering and suppressed laughter behind the door of the room, which seemed to show that the Earl of Ashby's kinsman was not far off, and was employed in the precise occupation which the peasant had assigned to him.
The serving-man wisely held his tongue, and, in a minute after, the door opened, and gave entrance to a man somewhat above the middle size, of a slim and graceful figure, the thinness of which did not seem to indicate weakness, but rather sinewy activity. He was dressed in close-fitting garments of a dark marone tint, with riding-boots, and spurs without rowels. Over the tight coat I have mentioned, coming halfway down his thigh, was a loose garment called a tabard, of philimot colour, apparently to keep his dress from the dust, and above it again a green hood, which was now thrown back upon his shoulders. His sword peeped from under his tabard, and the hilt of his dagger showed itself, also, on the other side. His air was easy and self-possessed, but there was a quick and furtive glance of the eye from object to object, as he entered the room, which gave the impression that there was a cunning and inquisitive spirit within. His face was certainly handsome, though pale and dark; his beard was short and black, and his hair, which was remarkably fine and glossy, had been left to grow long, and was platted like that of a woman. His hand was white and fine, and it was evident that he paid no slight attention to his dress, by the tremendous length of the points of his boots, which were embroidered to represent a serpent, and buttoned to his knees with a small loop of gold. His hood, too, was strangely ornamented with various figures embroidered round the edge; and yet so great was the extravagance of the period, that his apparel would then have been considered much less costly than that of most men of his rank, for his revenues were by far too limited, and his other expenses too many and too frequent, to permit of his indulging to the full his taste for splendid garments.
As this personage entered the room, the sharp glance of the serving-man detected the figure of Kate, the host's daughter, gliding away from the opening door, but, turning his head discreetly, he fixed his eyes upon the new-comer with a low reverence, advancing at the same time towards him.
The Earl's kinsman, however, either did not, or affected not to know the person who approached him, and the lord's man was obliged to enter into explanations as to who he was, and what was his errand.
"Ha!" said Richard de Ashby, "danger at York, is there? My good lord, your master, has brought us down here for nothing, then, it seems. I know not how my kinsman, the Earl of Ashby, will take this, for he loves not journeying to be disappointed."
"My lord does not intend to disappoint the Earl," replied the serving-man; "he will give him the meeting in the course of to-morrow--somewhere."
"Know you not where?" demanded the gentleman; and, as the servant turned his eyes, with a doubtful glance, to the spot where the peasant was seated, the other added, "Come hither with me upon the green, where there are no idle ears to overhear."
If his words were meant as a hint for Hardy to quit the room, it was not taken; for the hunchback remained fixed to the table, having recourse from time to time to his jug of ale, and looking towards the door more than once, after Sir Richard and the lord's man had quitted the chamber.
Their conference was apparently long, and at length, first one of the gentleman's servants, and then another, entered the little low-roofed room, and approached the table at which the peasant sat.
"Hallo! what hast thou got here, bumpkin?" cried one of them--"wine for such a carle as thou