"However, since none here hath any French but I," said he, "I bethought me that no public scandal was to be feared, and so read on."
We rode into the little town of Glastonbury, where it lieth under its strange and conical steep hill, about four o'clock in the afternoon; it being then, I think, toward the end of January, and clear still weather. And because it was already dusk I would not proceed further that day; but in the morning, before daybreak, we proceeded again forward, going by the ridgeway that, as a viaduct, standeth high above the levels, then all veiled in chill grey mists. We got into Taunton a little ere noon, and there baited our horses, being determined to end our journey before nightfall, which we could not have done except by this respite. The name of Simon Powell had been so oft upon my lips, and I had with so many and lively strokes depainted him in conversation with Idonia, that she had come to know him almost as well as I, and thus I was hardly astonished when she turned about in her saddle to gaze after a young man that walked in a meadow a little apart from the highway as we were entering the hamlet of Tolland, and asked me whether he were not, as in truth he was, my old companion.
Marvellous glad to meet with Simon after this long interval, I drew rein and beckoned to him, who, running forward almost at the same instant, took my hand, gloved as it was, and covered it with kisses.
"How doth my father?" I demanded eagerly, and ere he had concluded his salutation.
"His worship may mend when he sees you come home," said he gravely, and by that I saw I was not to indulge too large a hope of his mending.
"I would we were indeed arrived home, Simon," I replied; "but at all events, this lodging shall soon be exchanged for a better; that is, if he may yet bear to be moved."
We walked our horses along very slowly, Simon between us as we went, to whom Idonia addressed herself so kindly that the lad, falling instantly in love with her, had nearly forgot the principal thing of all he had to say, which was that Sir Matthew Juke had but at the Christmas quarter-day past renounced his tenancy of the Court and gone to Bristol, where he had formed the acquaintance of a merchant-adventurer that was about to attempt the Northwest passage (as it is named, although none hath yet found it); and upon this voyage the knight also was set to go.
"His head is full of the design," said Simon, "so that those about him fear his wits unsettled, and indeed he spends the better part of every day poring upon books of navigation, treatises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and the like, while his speech is ever of victualling and charts and ships' logs, but of other things, and even in the Justices' room at the Sessions, never a word."
"Say you he hath resigned his lease of our house at Combe?" cried I, interrupting him for the very impatience of my joy; and when I knew he certainly had so done, struck the spurs into my tired beast and galloped forward to the Inn.
Of the interval I say nothing, nor of the mutual delight with which my father and I embraced each other; and afterwards of the bestowal of his welcome upon Idonia, which he did with that accustomed courtly grace of his, and bound the maid to him in love by the simple manner of his doing it.