“An old schoolfellow at the Abbey is with me, who saw him, himself unseen, at Bovey yesterday, and can swear to him.”
“Then we had better go to bed, for we must rise betimes.”
“Only write out the warrants to-night. You can lodge me?”
“As I would the devil if he came on the King’s service. Nay, be not offended, I love not this butchering work, chopping up men into quarters; but still the King is the King, and justice must be done. I have had my bark and will not fail you when the time comes to bite.”
When Cuthbert reached home that night, he lost no time in telling Father Ambrose, or Sir Walter, by whichever name the reader likes to call him, the story of his meeting with Sir John Redfyrne.
Sir Walter looked very serious as he heard it; he did not like the look of the affair.
“It might have been well for thee, poor lad, hadst thou let the Gubbings finish their work.”
“But would it have been right, father?”