"With your permission we will decline your offer," Albert said. "My father is detained at the Tower, and my mother and sister are alone, and will be expecting us."
"Well, I will not press you. I do not suppose that you care about having your good actions talked about."
"Truly, Master Robert, these young gentlemen have rendered us both rare service," Van Voorden said, after he and Gaiton had both told their stories. "I see not how I am to discharge any of my obligations to them. If they had taken us both captives in war they would have put us to ransom and we could have paid whatever was demanded, but in this case we do not stand so."
"I feel that myself, Mynheer. A knight considers himself in no ways lowered by taking ransom from a captive, or by receiving a purse of gold from his sovereign. But his notions of honour will scarce admit of his taking money for a service rendered. I have promised to fit them out with arms, armour, and a war-horse when they go on service; but beyond that, which is after all but a trifle to me, I see not what to do."
"I am sorry that you have forestalled me," Van Voorden said, "for I had thought of doing that myself. I may do them a service if they should chance at any time to go to Flanders; but beyond that I see not that I can do aught at present. Later on, when they become knights, and take wives for themselves, I shall step in and buy estates for them to support their rank, and methinks that they will not refuse the gift."
"I shall claim to take part with you in that matter," Robert Gaiton said. "I cannot count guineas with you, but I am a flourishing man, and as I have but one daughter to marry, I have no need for my money beyond what is engaged in trade."
"Well, we won't quarrel over that," the Fleming replied. "However, for the present it were best to say naught of our intentions. They are noble lads. Edgar is the leading spirit, and, indeed, the other told me, when they were waiting till it was safe for them to leave the hiding-place, that he had been a very weakly lad, and had been intended for the Church, but that Edgar had been a great friend of his, had urged him to practise in arms, which so increased his strength that he was, to his father's delight, able to abandon the idea. He said that all he knew of arms he had acquired from Edgar, and that, while he was still but an indifferent swordsman, his friend was wonderfully skilled with his weapon, and fully a match for most men."
"That he has proved for both of our benefits," Robert Gaiton said. "In truth, they are in all ways worthy youths. I have seen much of them during the last few days, and like them greatly, irrespective of my gratitude for what they did for me."
On the following day the king knighted the lord mayor, William Walworth, Robert Gaiton, and five other aldermen who had ridden with him, and granted an augmentation to the arms of the city, introducing a short sword or dagger in the right quarter of the shield, in remembrance of the deed by which the lord mayor had freed him from the leader of the rioters.
Van Voorden called with Robert Gaiton upon Sir Ralph to thank him for the services his son and Edgar had rendered him, and heard for the first time how they had saved Dame Agatha and Aline from insult, and had slain the seven rioters, of whom five had fallen to Edgar's sword.