“We 'll all go to Fair with the peddler,” Haukyn declared.
But now the peddler answered: “Nay, n-not so! If I go, I go alone. W-were I seen in your c-company, I 'd never sell it. M-my tabard is whole, m-my hosen are clean, m-my pack beareth me witness I 'm a peddler. Ye are ragged. I-I 'll swear on the horn afore I go that I 'll bring b-back the gold.”
So they gave consent unwillingly, and composed them to a nap.
When the peddler set out to Chester next morning, he had the horn in his pack. Symme, Nicholas, and Haukyn came to the edge of the wood with him and watched him out of sight. Before he went into the city, he stopped in the jousting-field outside the eastern wall; here were the showmen and minstrels, the dancers and jongleurs, and cheap-jacks of all kind. Among these the peddler wandered musing, till he came to pause before a man that sold black stuff in a bottle, “to make gray hair black.” The peddler had a coin or two in his hand, and he bought a bottle of this stuff and stowed it in his pack; but he took out the horn and hid it under his tabard. At the gate he showed his pack empty, with only the bottle in it, and was let pass without toll,—for all who brought in wares to sell must pay toll to the Fair. Within the city he bought a new hood, for he had had none since he came out of Devon, and Calote told him once the sun burned his hair, it grew rusty. He lingered above an hour among the Rows; but he bought no trinkets to fill his pack, neither did he enter any goldsmith's shop to chaffer for the horn. About noon he came out and walked by the Dee till he happed on a quiet, lonely place, screened by the bushes. Here, sitting down, he first rubbed his head well with the black dye, and let it dry in the sun the while he took out from some safe place within his tabard a pouch or bag, very full and heavy. When he undid the mouth of the bag and tipped it up, there plumped out gold and silver coin in a heap,—and he put his hand over it and looked about warily before he set to counting. But there was no one nigh, so presently he had made of one pile florins, and of another muttons, and three rose nobles of another; and the silver he separated likewise, into groats and pence. In the end he found that he had what he knew was there when he set a price upon the chain and the horn,—fifteen pound, odd pence. That the chain was of more value he guessed, but this was all he had,—a goodly sum for a peddler; 't were marvel if he had come by so much in trade. He was loth to part with all, yet he had not dared to offer less, for that the soldier was a shrewd rogue.
He swept all into the pouch and tucked the pouch within his breast; he dropped the horn into the point of his hood and slipped the hood over his head, the point wagging behind; he set his empty pack afloat on the river Dee, for now he had no money to buy trinkets. Except three groat, he was penniless. He laughed, as his thoughts had been new thoughts and amazing.
Meanwhile, in the brown dry woodland there was strife and a discovery.
Quoth the sister of the young lad that had slain the bailiff:—
“Let 's see the horn, Calote; I 've not laid eyes on 't this day.”
“Let be!” said Symme rudely. “How do ye pester the maid! ye 'll wear away the silver with fingering.”
“Nay, but I 'll show it gladly,” Calote protested. “'T is small courtesy I may show for kindness,” and she drew forth the old cow's horn.