"Ay, ay, maybe; but Mr. Barty's purse is longer than yours, Sir Grey, and his mind is crookeder and his ways more artful. Don't you go for to anger him yet: hurt might come to you an you did. Get you gone from the place, and that right soon; for the sooner you leave Hartsbourne behind you, the safer it will be for you."
"Yes, my master; let us indeed be gone," pleaded Dicon earnestly. "This is a God-forsaken hole, not fit for you to dwell in. Take the store of gold pieces, and let us begone, for I trow that harm will come to you if you linger longer here."
It took little to persuade Grey to be off and away. Old Jock provided them with a meal, and they could break their fast at the old inn at Edgeware, through which they would pass. He had no desire to go through the farce of a farewell to his kinsman. He only desired to shake off the dust of his feet against him; and ere the chimes of the church rang out the hour of six, Grey was turning on the crest of a ridge of rising ground, to look his last for the nonce upon the old home he had dreamed of so many a time, and round which so many loving thoughts centred.
"Let kind Fortune but smile upon me, Dicon, and show me the way to affluence and fame, and I will yet be lord and master there, and the manor of Hartsbourne shall be one of the fairest in the land!"
"Why, so you shall, Sir Grey, and that right speedily!" cried honest Dick, who had an unbounded admiration for his young master, and an immense confidence in his luck, albeit no special good fortune had befallen him since he had taken service with him.
Dick had led a seafaring life during his earlier years, and Grey had picked him up in a shipwrecked, ragged, and starving condition on the coast of Spain some two years previously. In those days ship-wrecked sailors often had a hard time of it, even though the terrors of the galleys or the Inquisition did not loom quite so perilously before them as had been the case a century before. To find himself taken into the service of a young English gentleman of quality, and to be the companion of his travels, had been a piece of luck that Dick thanked Providence for every day of his life. He had been one of four servants at the outset; but as Grey's resources diminished, or his roving life took him into perils for which some men had little stomach, he gradually lost his retinue, till, for the past year, Dick alone had followed him, and the two had become friends and comrades, as well as master and servant. Now at their first halting-place, where they paused to let the horses breathe after a steady half-hour's gallop, Grey opened the wallet at his side, which he had filled with gold pieces from the casket (the rest he had sewn carefully into his clothes for safety), and counted out a certain number, which he shook in his fist as he spoke.
"Dicon, I am going to London to try my luck there. But, as I have ofttimes heard, fortunes are as easily lost there as won, wherefore it may be that I shall become a beggar instead of growing in wealth and greatness."
"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Dick in passionate protest.
"Well, Heaven watches over the undeserving as well as the virtuous, so there is e'en hope for me," answered Grey with his winning smile. "But look ye here, Dicon. You have been a faithful rogue, and have served me well, and I hope we may company together many a long day yet. But inasmuch as there are uncertainties in life, and we are going forth into a new world, where perchance I may sink rather than swim, I desire to give you six months' wage in advance, whilst I have my pockets lined with gold, so that should any untoward chance befall me, as it has befallen better men than myself, I shall not have to turn you adrift unrewarded, nor will you, if you can be a wise varlet, and husband your resources, be thrown on the world without some means of support."
Dick seemed about to protest, but either the look on his master's face or some idea which had entered his own head held him silent. He took the coins without counting them, and producing a greasy leathern pouch, such as sailors often carry with them, he dropped the gold pieces into it one by one, tied it up, and fastened it safely in an inner pocket.