“The damosel is in my care, Gybbe Pykerel; I 'll answer to the King as concerning my loyauté and hers.”
“What!—Etienne Fitzwarine!” cried the man. “A frolic?—Eh, well!—I 'm Archbishop's man, 't is none of my devoir to meddle with King's minions.”
And the priest being now fast bound, and all others in their saddles, this soldier followed, and all rode forth of the village. But one villein cried after them:—
“We have chose to let ye have him now, but 'ware the day when we come to take him out o' Maidstone gaol! 'Ware the day!”
Then they went to the espier, where he lay dead, and they lifted him up and bore him within the church.
“My horse!” cried the peddler. “Where is Blanchefleur, my d-destrier?”
“Wat Tyler 's astride and halfway to Canterbury by this, brother,” said a woman.
The peddler laughed,—was naught else to do.
“Eh, well, mistress, thou and I must go afoot,” quoth he to Calote; “'t will not be the first time.”
He took her hand and she went with him meekly, as she were in a dream. A little way beyond the village he led her off the road into a wood, and there made her to sit down under a tree. He thrust a stopple of dry leaves into the small end of the King's horn, and filled it with water from a spring near by, which, when she had drunk, she smiled. Whereupon the peddler cast him down on the grass at her feet and took the dusty hem of her kirtle to his lips and held it there,—a-kissing it; and once he sobbed.