“Thinkest thou so?” she said turning quickly. “Elyas, it was not much that I said, and it was not he but the monkey which provoked me.”
“Nay, I am not blaming thee, I blame myself. He is but a little lad to be left friendless in the world, and I might have been more tender with him, and kept him more by mine own side. Then this would not have happened.”
“Where will he go?”
“That I must find out at the gates, which I will do presently, though it is too late to pass out to-night. Most likely he has taken the road he knew best.”
He came back before long, saying it was as he thought, for the keeper of the West Gate had seen the boy go out. At sunrise Elyas said he would mount his good grey and follow. There was nothing else to be done, and he made as light of it as he could to Prothasy, saying the dreariness of the night might give a useful lesson.
And so it was that early the next day, when poor Hugh had got no further than a bare two miles from the place where he had slept, although he felt as if he had been walking all day, Master Gervase came upon a little figure lying under a clump of nut-bushes, and with a pang in his heart, sprang off his horse, and gathering Hugh and Agrippa into his arms, mounted again, and rode back as quickly as he could to Exeter.