slow, that when morning began to dawn through the eastern mist, he found himself no farther than about ten miles distant from Cumnor. 'Now, a plague upon all smooth-spoken hosts!' said Wayland, unable longer to suppress his mortification and uneasiness. 'Had the false loon, Giles Gosling, but told me plainly two days since that I was to reckon nought upon him, I had shifted better for myself. But your hosts have such a custom of promising whatever is called for that it is not till the steed is to be shod you find they are out of iron. Had I but known, I could have made twenty shifts; nay, for that matter, and in so good a cause, I would have thought little to have prigged a prancer from the next common—it had but been sending back the brute to the headborough. The farcy and the founders confound every horse in the stables of the Black Bear!'
The lady endeavoured to comfort her guide, observing that the dawn would enable him to make more speed.
'True, madam,' he replied; 'but then it will enable other folk to take note of us, and that may prove an ill beginning of our journey. I had not cared a spark from anvil about the matter had we been further advanced on our way. But this Berkshire has been notoriously haunted, ever since I knew the country, with that sort of malicious elves who sit up late and rise early for no other purpose than to pry into other folk's affairs. I have been endangered by them ere now. But do not fear,' he added, 'good madam; for wit, meeting with opportunity, will not miss to find a salve for every sore.'
The alarms of her guide made more impression on the Countess's mind than the comfort which he judged fit to administer along with it. She looked anxiously around her, and as the shadows withdrew from the landscape, and the heightening glow of the eastern sky promised the speedy rise of the sun, expected at every turn that the increasing light would expose them to the view of the vengeful pursuers, or present some dangerous and insurmountable obstacle to the prosecution of their journey. Wayland Smith perceived her uneasiness, and, displeased with himself for having given her cause of alarm, strode on with affected alacrity, now talking to the horse as one expert in the language of the stable, now whistling to himself low and interrupted snatches of tunes, and now assuring the lady there was no danger, while at the same time he looked sharply around to see that there was nothing in sight which might give the lie to his words while they were issuing from his mouth. Thus did they journey on, until an unexpected incident gave them the means of continuing their pilgrimage with more speed and convenience.
CHAPTER XXIV.
RICHARD. A horse!—A horse!—my kingdom for a horse!
CATESBY......My lord, I'll help you to a horse.
Our travellers were in the act of passing a small thicket of trees close by the roadside, when the first living being presented himself whom they had seen since their departure from Cumnor Place. This was a stupid lout, seemingly a farmer's boy, in a grey jerkin, with his head bare, his hose about his heels, and huge startups upon his feet. He held by the bridle what of all things they most wanted—a palfrey, namely, with a side-saddle, and all other garniture for a woman's mounting; and he hailed Wayland Smith with, 'Zur, be ye zure the party?'
'Ay, that I be, my lad,' answered Wayland, without an instant's hesitation; and it must be owned that consciences trained in a stricter school of morality might have given way to an occasion so tempting. While he spoke, he caught the rein out of the boy's hand, and almost at the same time helped down the Countess from his own horse, and aided her to mount on that which chance had thus presented for her acceptance. Indeed, so naturally did the whole take place, that the Countess, as it afterwards appeared, never suspected but that the horse had been placed there to meet them by the precaution of the guide or some of his friends.
The lad, however, who was thus hastily dispossessed of his charge, began to stare hard, and scratch his head, as if seized with some qualms of conscience for delivering up the animal on such brief explanation. 'I be right zure thou be'st the party,' said he, muttering to himself, 'but thou shouldst ha zaid BEANS, thou knawest.'
'Ay, ay,' said Wayland, speaking at a venture; 'and thou BACON, thou knowest.'
'Noa, noa,' said the lad; 'bide ye—bide ye—it was PEAS a should ha said.'
'Well, well,' answered Wayland, 'Peas be it, a God's name! though Bacon were the better password.'
And being by this time mounted on his own horse, he caught the rein of the palfrey from the uncertain hold of the hesitating young boor, flung him a small piece of money, and made amends for lost time by riding briskly off without further parley. The lad was still visible from the hill up which they were riding, and Wayland, as he looked back, beheld him standing with his fingers in his hair as immovable as a guide-post, and his head turned in the direction in which they were escaping from him. At length, just as they topped the hill, he saw the clown stoop to lift up the silver groat which his benevolence had imparted. 'Now this is what I call a Godsend,' said Wayland; 'this is a bonny, well-ridden bit of a going thing, and it will carry us so far till we get you as well mounted, and then we will send it back time enough to satisfy the Hue and Cry.'
But he was deceived in his expectations; and fate, which seemed at first to promise so fairly, soon threatened to turn the incident which he thus gloried in into the cause of their utter ruin.
They had not ridden a short mile from the place where they left the lad before they heard a man's voice shouting on the wind behind them, 'Robbery! robbery!—Stop thief!' and similar exclamations, which Wayland's conscience readily assured him must arise out of the transaction to which he had been just accessory.
'I had better have gone barefoot all my life,' he said; 'it is the Hue and Cry, and I am a lost man. Ah! Wayland, Wayland, many a time thy father said horse-flesh would be the death of thee. Were I once safe among the horse-coursers in Smithfield, or Turnbull Street, they should have leave to hang me as high as St. Paul's if I e'er meddled more with nobles, knights, or gentlewomen.'
Amidst these dismal reflections, he turned his head repeatedly to see by whom he was chased, and was much comforted when he could only discover a single rider, who was, however, well mounted, and came after them at a speed which left them no chance of escaping, even had the lady's strength permitted her to ride as fast as her palfrey might have been able to gallop.
'There may be fair play betwixt us, sure,' thought Wayland, 'where there is but one man on each side, and yonder fellow sits on his horse more like a monkey than a cavalier. Pshaw! if it come to the worse, it will be easy unhorsing him. Nay, 'snails! I think his horse will take the matter in his own hand, for he has the bridle betwixt his teeth. Oons, what care I for him?' said he, as the pursuer drew yet nearer; 'it is but the little animal of a mercer from Abingdon, when all is over.'
Even so it was, as the experienced eye of Wayland had descried at a distance. For the valiant mercer's horse, which was a beast of mettle, feeling himself put to his speed, and discerning a couple of horses riding fast at some hundred yards' distance before him, betook himself to the road with such alacrity as totally deranged the seat of his rider, who not only came up with, but passed at full gallop, those whom he had been pursuing, pulling the reins with all his might, and ejaculating, 'Stop! stop!' an interjection which seemed rather to regard his own palfrey than what seamen call 'the chase.' With the same involuntary speed, he shot ahead (to use another nautical phrase) about a furlong ere he was able to stop and turn his horse, and then rode back towards our travellers, adjusting, as well as he could, his disordered dress, resettling himself in the saddle, and endeavouring to substitute a bold and martial frown for the confusion and dismay which sat upon his visage during his involuntary career.
Wayland had just time to caution the lady not to be alarmed, adding, 'This fellow is a gull, and I will use him as such.'
When the mercer had recovered breath and audacity enough to confront them, he ordered Wayland, in a menacing tone, to deliver up his palfrey.
'How?' said the smith, in King Cambyses' vein, 'are we commanded to stand and deliver on the king's highway? Then out, Excalibur, and tell this knight of prowess that dire blows must decide between us!'
'Haro and help, and hue and cry, every true man!' said the mercer. 'I am withstood in seeking to recover mine own.'
