“Why, I thought thee a friend of the King.”
“So I am, but what can all this mean?”
“That he hid the Abbey plate, so that the King’s visitors could not find it, when they wanted to make an inventory, and confiscate patens and chalices for the King’s use.”
“But it was his own.”
“Only in trust, you see.”
“Still he might hide it in trust for the Abbey, that would not be robbery.”
“Friend, I should advise thee to consider it robbery in these days; it is better for all men who do not want their necks stretched to think as the King and his minister, Thomas Cromwell, think; don’t fear but we shall find men to bring him in guilty.”
The poor inn-keeper was silent; perhaps he remembered that one of his predecessors had been hanged for saying he would make his son heir to the “Crown,” meaning the “Crown Inn.”
The boys stole out unobserved.
“What shall we do?”