I sat and thought how my errand was to be most speedily carried out, for you see I might trudge days and days afoot like this before good luck or my own limbs brought me to the footstool of Edward’s Royal wife, and gave me leave to burst that green and rusty case that, with its precious scroll, still dangled at my side. I had no money to buy a horse—the bangles taken from the crypt-thieves would not stand against the value of the boniest palfrey that ever ambled between a tinker’s legs—and last night’s infernal wetting had made me into the sorriest, most moldy-looking herald that ever did a kingly bidding. Surely, I thought, as I glanced at my borrowed clay-stained rustic cloak, my cracked and rotten leather doublet, my tarnished hose all frayed and colorless, my shoon, that only held together, methought, by their patching of gray sea-slime and mud, surely no one will lend or loan me anything like this; they will laugh at my knightly gage of honorable return, and scout the faintest whisper of my errand!
Thus ruefully reflecting, I had finished my frugal luncheon, yet still scarce knew what to do, and maybe I had sat dubious like that on the trestle edge for near an hour, when, looking up on a sudden, there was a blooming little maid of some three tender years standing in the sun staring hard upon me, her fair blue eyes ashine with wonder, and the strands of her golden hair lifting on the breeze like gossamers in June. She had in one rosebud hand a flower of yellow daffodil, and in fault of better introduction proffered it to me. My stern soldier heart was melted by that maid. I took her flower and put it in my belt, and lifted the little one on my knee, then asked her why she had looked so hard at the stranger.
She proffered it to me
“Oh!” she said, pointing to where some older children were watching all this from a safe distance, “Johnnie and Andrew, my brothers, said you were surely the devil, and, as they feared, I came myself to see if it were true.”
“And am I? Is it true?”
“I do not know,” said the little damsel, fixing her clear blue eyes upon mine—“I do not know for certain, but I like you! I am sorry for you, because you are so dirty. If you were cleaner I could love you”—and very cautiously, watching my eyes the while, the pretty babe put out a petal-soft hand and stroked my grim and weathered face.
I could not withstand such gentle blandishment, and forgot all my musings and my haste, and kissed those pink fingers under the shadow of my hat, and laid myself out to win that soft little heart, and won it, so that, when presently the wondering mother came to claim her own, the little maiden burst into such a headlong shower of silver April tears that I had to perjure myself with false promises to come again, and even the gift of my last coin and another kiss or two scarce set me free from the sweet investigator.
But now I was aroused, and stalked down the green country road full of speed and good intention. I would walk to the Royal city, since there were no other way, and these fair shires must have grown expansive since the olden days if I could not see a march or two while the sun was up. Eastward and north I knew the Court should lie, so bent my steps through glades and commons with the midday sun behind my better shoulder. But the journey was to be shorter than seemed likely at the outset. After asking, to no purpose, my road of several rustics, a venerable wayfarer was chanced upon, ambling down a shady gully.
This quaint old fellow sat a rough little steed, one, indeed, of the poorest-looking, most knock-kneed beasts I had ever seen a gentleman of gentle quality astride of. And, in truth, the rider was not better kept. He wore a great widespreading cloak of threadbare stuff, falling from his shoulders to his knees in such ample folds that it half hid the neck and quarters of his steed. Below this mantle, splashed with twenty shades of mud and most quaintly patched, you saw the pricks of rusty iron spurs on old and shabby leather boots, and just the point of a frayed black leather scabbard peeping under his stirrup-straps. The hat he wore was broad-brimmed and peaked, and looked near as old as did its wearer. Under that shapeless cover was a most strange face. I do not think I ever saw so much and various writ upon so little parchment as shone upon the dry and wrinkled surface of that rider’s features. There were cunning and closeness on it, and yet they did not altogether hide the openness of gentle birth and liberal thought. Now you would think to watch those shrewd, keen eyes a-glitter there under the penthouse of his shaggy eyebrows, he was some paltry trader with a vision bounded by his weekly till and the infruct of his lying measures, and then anon, at some word or passing fancy, as you came to know him better, ’twas strange to see how eagle-like those optics shone, and with what a clear, bright, prophetic gaze the old fellow would stare, like a steersman through the dim-lit gloom of a starry night, over the wide horizon of the visionary and uncertain! He could look as small and mean about the mouth as a usurer on settling day; and then, when his mood changed, and he fell thoughtful, the gentle melancholy of his face—the goodly soul that spoke behind that changeful mask, the strange dissatisfaction, the incompleteness, the unhappy longing for something unattainable there reflected, made you sad to look upon it!