Hugh prudently got the kettle into his own hands, then presented himself at the door with the query, “What’s amiss?”
“Here are three rogues from Woodstead who seek to plunder the very horses from my plough,” replied the widow, clapping hands on the kettle. “Now come in if you dare, the pack of you!”
But Hugh stayed her arm, while he looked out and got the situation. In the open space between the rear door and the stable three horses drooped their heads, and by them lingered two dragoons, one heavy and surly, the other a thin-faced fellow, who, looking sharply at Hugh, nudged his comrade. It seemed just an ordinary small foraging band, who were going beyond their authority, so Hugh stepped out and confronted the cross-eyed man with a stern, “What’s your warrant for this?”
“King’s service, sir,” the other replied, gazing at him a little doubtfully.
“’Tis service that will profit you little if it come to your captain’s ears,” Hugh answered. “There are none here but loyal people and friends to the king. Best take advice and go back empty-handed. ’Twill be for your good in the end.”
Just there a hand was clapped heavily upon his collar; instinctively Hugh was ducking to wrest himself clear, when the cross-eyed man, too, caught him by the throat of his jacket, and, realizing the uselessness of a struggle, the boy held himself quiet. “We’ll go back to Woodstead right enough, sir,” spoke the thin-faced trooper, who had first seized him. “But you’ll go with us, Master Gwyeth.”
“My name is Edmund Burley,” Hugh replied stoutly, though the heart seemed all at once to have gone out of his body.
“Well, you’ve enough the look of the other gentleman for Lord Bellasis to pay ten pound for the sight of your face. You can explain to him who you are, sir,” scoffed the thin-faced man. “Fetch a horse from the stable for him, Garrett.”
After that, as in an ugly dream, matters went without Hugh’s agency. He felt his arm ache in the hard grip of the cross-eyed man, which he had no hope to shake off; he heard the widow in heated expostulation with the thin-faced trooper, assuring him the gentleman had dwelt with her near six months, and could not have had a hand in the mischief they charged him with; he saw Nancy come out, all blubbering, to bring him his hat, and he said, “Why, don’t cry over it, wench,” and wondered at the dull tone of his voice. It seemed an interminable time, but at length one of the plough horses was led out, all saddled, and, mounting as they bade him, he rode away with them in the gray of the afternoon. As they passed out from the yard he heard the door of Ashcroft slam, and by that he knew the widow was much moved.
Then, turning eastward, they trotted slowly across gray fields, a trooper on either side Hugh’s horse, and he went as they guided. For he took no heed to them, as he told himself that Dick Strangwayes was far away in the North, Sir William busied at Tamworth, and in Oxford there was not a friend to aid him. Already he seemed to feel the chill of the cells in the old Castle at Oxford, and to see a room full of stern men who bullied and frightened him; after that he thought to hear the cart jolting beneath him across the stony streets, while the people ran and pointed at him; and then he felt a rope about his throat. He tried helplessly to battle off such thoughts, but they still pressed upon him till his head was stupid with turning them over, and, listening uncomprehendingly to the talk of those about him, he rode in a sort of daze.