“I would fight them again,” said the boy, looking up boldly.
“I warrant thou wouldst,” said the friar, laughing heartily. “And without a mother, who will mend thy clothes? They have suffered more damage than thy tough head, which looks as if ’twere made to bear blows.”
Hugh glanced with some dismay at his torn jerkin. It was not the first time that the question had presented itself, though the friar’s questions had driven it out of his head. And the elder lad now showed symptoms of impatience.
“May we not be going back, sir?” he said to his companion. “The jongleurs were to be at their play by now, and we are not like to see much out in this green tangle.”
“As thou wilt,” said the good-tempered friar; “I will but make one more proffer to our valiant friend. See here, Hugh, I have a fancy to know the name of the biggest of thine enemies, the one who set the others on thee. Will a groat buy the knowledge? There it is before thine eyes, true English coin, and no base counterfeit pollard. Only the name, and it is thine.”
“Not I!” cried the boy. “I’ll have nothing to do with getting him flogged.”
“Yet I’ll answer for it thy pocket does not see many groats, and what brave things there be to be bought at the fair! Sweets and comfits and spices.”
“They would choke me!”
The friar laughed long, with a fat, noiseless chuckle full of merriment.
“Well,” he said, “I keep my groat, and thou thine honour, and I see that Wolf hath shown himself, as ever, a dog of discretion. Shall we take the boy back to thy father’s lodgings, Edgar, and persuade Mistress Judith to bestow some of her fair mending upon his garments?”