The two boys appeared in the room of the inn looking so unlike the dusty, blood-stained pair who had entered, that Master Headley took a second glance to convince himself that they were the same, before beckoning them to seats on either side of him, saying that he must know more of them, and bidding the host load their trenchers well from the grand fabric of beef-pasty which had been set at the end of the board. The runaways, four or five in number, herded together lower down, with a few travellers of lower degree, all except the youth who had been boasting before their arrival, and who retained his seat at the board, thumping it with the handle of his knife to show his impatience for the commencement of supper; and not far off sat Tibble, the same who had hailed their arrival, a thin, slight, one-sided looking person, with a terrible red withered scar on one cheek, drawing the corner of his mouth awry. He, like Master Headley himself, and the rest of his party were clad in red, guarded with white, and wore the cross of St. George on the white border of their flat crimson caps, being no doubt in the livery of their Company. The citizen himself, having in the meantime drawn his conclusions from the air and gestures of the brothers, and their mode of dealing with their food, asked the usual question in an affirmative tone, “Ye be of gentle blood, young sirs?”
To which they replied by giving their names, and explaining that they were journeying from the New Forest to find their uncle in the train of the Archbishop of York.
“Birkenholt,” said Tibble, meditatively. “He beareth vert, a buck’s head proper, on a chief argent, two arrows in saltire. Crest, a buck courant, pierced in the gorge by an arrow, all proper.”
To which the brothers returned by displaying the handles of their knives, both of which bore the pierced and courant buck.
“Ay, ay,” said the man. “’Twill be found in our books, sir. We painted the shield and new-crested the morion the first year of my prenticeship, when the Earl of Richmond, the late King Harry of blessed memory, had newly landed at Milford Haven.”
“Verily,” said Ambrose, “our uncle Richard Birkenholt fought at Bosworth under Sir Richard Pole’s banner.”
“A tall and stalwart esquire, methinks,” said Master Headley. “Is he the kinsman you seek?”
“Not so, sir. We visited him at Winchester, and found him sorely old and with failing wits. We be on our way to our mother’s brother, Master Harry Randall.”
“Is he clerk or layman? My Lord of York entertaineth enow of both,” said Master Headley.
“Lay assuredly, sir,” returned Stephen; “I trust to him to find me some preferment as page or the like.”