"While I was serving him he told me he was looking for an Englishman named Tyndale, who was busy translating the Scriptures, but had escaped just when it was thought that he would be captured and burnt. He suspected that a young man was with him, but he was not sure, and perhaps a young maiden named Margaret Byrckmann, who had escaped from the House of the Inquisition. Had I seen them? He asked me that, and I answered truly that I had not.
"Now you know!" the woman exclaimed. "And you must be gone; but you need not start till midnight. I will bid my stableman feed your horses well, and when the house is quiet he can muffle their feet in straw and get them away to a copse just off the road."
She left them softly, and presently, from time to time those who sat about the fire, wondering how the night would end, heard her voice as she gave her orders to her maids and serving-men. During that long, anxious evening they heard the soldiers singing their drinking songs.
The hours went slowly, and none of them were able to rest, although Tyndale and Margaret went to their rooms in the hope of getting some sleep. Their thoughts were on the perils of the night journey, and they wondered whether they could cover the fifteen miles that lay between this inn and the home of Martin Luther. Was it possible, now that Cochlaeus was on their track, that they would after all fall into the hands of the tormentors? What if, before they could get away, Cochlaeus should discover that they were in this house! All they could do was to pray in silence, and leave themselves in the hands of God.
"An hour longer, and then it will be midnight," said Herman, who, with Margaret, hand in hand with him, had been looking out of the window, waiting in the hope that the moon would rise, to make their going easier.
He had scarcely spoken when there came the sound of a galloping horse, but it pulled up at the door of the inn, just below the window.
"Is Doctor Cochlaeus here?" the horseman cried, still in his saddle.
"Yes," came a woman's voice. "What is your will?"
"I want him this instant. Go and call him. Bid him come down from his bed, if he be in it! Tell him I have news for him."
"Come in and see him for yourself," said the mistress of the inn sharply, not caring for the man's peremptory orders. "Why should I obey the orders of any night rider who chooses to pull up at my inn door?"