"My gracious Lord, so poor a lodging as we could"—— began John Goose.
"Nay, Master Goose, but my need is to lie hid. I desire to be where men shall not think lightly to look for me. And I seek an house whereon God's peace cometh. Moreover, I would gladly hear more of Father Alcock's monitions."
"My Lord," said the old woman with some dignity, "if that be what your Lordship seeks, you shall find it here. You be not the first peer of England that hath lain hid in this house. Sixty years gone, when he that was sometime mine husband was a little lad, for divers weeks concealed in this house was Sir John Oldcastle, sometime Lord Cobham, that died for Christ's sake and the Gospel's. If it content your Lordship to be as well—nay, better lodged than he was, come."
"Abundantly, good Mother!" said the Duke. "And was that true man in the chamber where ye would put me?"
"Nay, my Lord, he had worser lodging than you shall find.—Jack, light a candle, and show his Lordship where my Lord Cobham lay."
John obeyed, and the Duke followed him, out of the kitchen and through the workshop, into a large closet in the wall of the latter room. Clearing away an armful of skins from the latter, John slipped back a sliding panel, by some mechanism known to himself, and disclosed a small, dark, dusty room, a little larger than the closet into which it opened, and furnished only with a leaf-table and a stool.
"Here, as I have heard," said John, "his Lordship lay during the day: and at night, when work was over, he came forth into the chamber which your Lordship shall have, and there he commonly sat a-writing till late into the night. Once, when a party came that 'twas thought might know the chamber, his Lordship donned an apron and a jerkin, and was set to work in the shop. 'Tis said," added John with a merry laugh, "he spoiled a skin thereby: but my grandfather recked not, but would have it set by as a precious thing, and 'twas so kept, some years."
"And did the men at work here never hear him?"
"Nay, I reckon they made too much noise themselves. Only one that was next unto him when he was in the shop said after unto my grandsire that he had taken a raw hand a-work, which should be some cost to train," said John, laughing.
"That can I conceive," replied the Duke, with a smile. "Well, Master Goose, so you and yours be willing, I will gladly engage this chamber. For the hire, charge you what is meet."