“Nay, goodman, when did Roger ask thy counsel? It was Hugh who brought it to thee, and, knowing Roger’s evil disposition, we were ever on the watch against eavesdropping and prying. But the day thou wast taken with thy sickness Hugh forgot it, and Roger stole the design. And now! But he shall not gain his end,” cried Wat, fiercely. “Goodman, where shall I be most likely to find Master Hamlyn?”
“Go and ask his head man there. But what good can he do thee?”
Wat, however, was already off, blaming himself bitterly that in the excitement of the morning, and his undoubted certainty that Hugh was secure of being first, he had omitted to remind the warden of what he held in trust. To add to his dismay, he could get no tidings of John Hamlyn. Each person he asked said he had been there but now, and must be somewhere close at hand, but he never arrived nearer, though he scoured the Cathedral from end to end, and brought upon himself a severe rating from the precentor. Then in despair he rushed off to Hamlyn’s house, where he met the warden’s wife and daughter setting forth to find out what was going on at the Cathedral. Even in the midst of his anxiety, Wat was suddenly seized with the conviction that Margaret Hamlyn, with her dark eyes and her primrose kirtle, was the sweetest maiden he had ever beheld, and she showed so much desire to help him, and was so very hopeful as to their finding her father, that before ten minutes were over he had not the smallest doubt on the matter.
Nevertheless, nothing could be heard of Hamlyn. Wat met Joan, who had been waiting and watching for Hugh until she could keep away no longer, and was come to seek Elyas with a little bundle tucked under her arm, from which she allowed a quaint wizened face to peep at Wat. Her confidence that all was well for Hugh, and her pretty pleasure in bringing Agrippa to join in his triumph, were so great that Wat had not the heart to damp them by telling her of the untoward turn events had taken; he only said impatiently that things were not yet settled, and that Hugh was an ass to go and bury himself in the green woods instead of coming forward with the others.
“Do they want him?” asked Joan stopping.
“Nay, I know not that they want him,” returned Wat, “but he should be there.”
“Then I shall go back and watch for him,” she said resolutely. “Mother is busy with the supper and might not see him. I know where he is gone, and he must come in by the North Gate, and I will get the keeper to let me sit there and wait. I will bring him, Wat, never fear.”
But as the minutes flew and nothing was seen of John Hamlyn, Wat began to wish that he had done nothing to draw Hugh to a place where he would only find his own just meeds passed over, and evil-doing triumphant. Gervase stood apart from his friends; he was sick at heart, feeling as if he had been the cause of all that had happened to Hugh, from his desire to see his own designs carried out. Perhaps he had not yet regained his usual healthy buoyancy, for all looked black; he felt strangely unable to influence those with whom his word had always carried weight, but most of all he grieved for Roger’s treachery.
Presently there was a little stir among the knot of judges, and Franklyn, who was near them, came over to Elyas, and whispered—
“It is all decided, goodman.”