It was very unusual for Wat to talk with so much shrewdness and common sense. Usually he was addle-pated enough, caring little for ratings, and plunging into trouble with the most good-natured tactlessness, so that friends and foes alike showered abuse upon him. Hugh had taken it for granted that he would be the same wherever he was, never realising that his present life was especially distasteful to him, and yet that he accepted it without gainsaying. It gave his words now a weight which was quite unusual, for he seemed never to suppose it possible that Hugh could go against his promise to his father, while he quite acknowledged that the other life would have been delightful. All seemed to arrange itself simply into two sides, right and wrong, so that Hugh began to wonder how he could ever have doubted when it was so clear to Wat.
In the house he found Joan shrieking because her father could not take her forth, and he was glad enough to make her over to Hugh, telling him that the king was to ride down the High Street to see the new bridge before returning to the banquet at the Guildhall, and warning him to take care not to allow Joan to be over-much entangled in the crowd. Then he put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked into his face.
“What said the knight to thee?”
“He offered, if thou wouldst consent, sir, to take me back with him, and to bring me up in his household.”
“As I expected,” said Elyas, gravely. “And that would content thee?”
“It is what I ever longed for,” said poor Hugh.
There was a pause. Gervase seemed to find it difficult to put the next question.
“Does the knight come here then to see me?”
“Nay,” said the boy wearily, “it were no use, goodman. I told him that I was bound by my promise to my father.”
“Ay, didst thou so? And what said he?”