“God be wi’ ye, Mistress Amphillis!” said Clement Winkfield, coming up and walking for a moment alongside, as the horse mounted the slight rising ground. “Maybe you would take a little farewell token of mine hand, just for to mind you when you look on it, that you have friends in London that shall think of you by nows and thens.”
And Clement held up to Amphillis a little silver box, with a ring attached, through which a chain or ribbon could be passed to wear it round the neck. A small red stone was set on one side.
“’Tis a good charm,” said he. “There is therein writ a Scripture, that shall bear you safe through all perils of journeying, and an hair of a she-bear, that is good against witchcraft; and the carnelian stone appeaseth anger. Trust me, it shall do you no harm to bear it anigh you.”
Amphillis, though a sensible girl for her time, was not before her time, and therefore had full faith in the wonderful virtues of amulets. She accepted the silver box with the entire conviction that she had gained a treasure of no small value. Simple, good-natured Clement lifted his cap, and turned back down Aldersgate Street, while Amphillis and her escort went on towards Saint Albans.
A few miles they rode in silence, broken now and then by a passing remark from the man in linen, chiefly on the deep subject of the hot weather, and by the sumpterman’s frequent requests that his mule would “gee-up,” which the perverse quadruped in question showed little inclination to do. At length, as the horse checked its speed to walk up a hill, the man in front of Amphillis said—
“Know you where you be journeying, my mistress?”
“Into Derbyshire,” she answered. “Have there all I know.”
“But you wot, surely, whom you go to serve?”
“Truly, I wot nothing,” she replied, “only that I go to be bower-woman to some lady. The lady that saw me, and bound me thereto, said that I might look to learn on the road.”
“Dear heart! and is that all they told you?”