“Ay? Learnt you that in Flanders?” said the friar, lifting his eyebrows in some astonishment. “Well, wherever you had it, ’tis good teaching and true, such as men by-and-by will look back and own. And so nothing will serve thee but hard blows? What is thy name?”
“Hugh Bassett, holy friar.”
“Come to the great Stourbridge fair with thy father and mother?”
“My mother is dead. My father has brought some of his carvings here to sell, and we lodge in the sacristan’s house because ’tis too cold in the fields.”
Wolf, at a call from the young lad, had come back from an investigation among the oaks, and was now slobbering affectionately over his young master’s hand; Hugh watching him with deepest interest.
“There is one thing thou hast all but forgotten,” said the friar; “the names of thy tormentors? See, they are still watching and peeping.”
The boy again hung his head.
“What now? Hast lost thy tongue?”
“Nay, father, but—”
“But what?” Then as Hugh muttered something, “What, I am not to know? Yet they were for serving thee badly enough!”