He therefore at once left the road he was following, and struck across the fields northward until he came upon the road to Ghent, at which town he arrived soon after noon, having walked two or three and twenty miles. Fearing to be questioned he passed through the town without stopping, crossed the Scheldt and continued his way for another five miles, when he stopped at the village of Gontere. He entered a small inn.
"I wish to stop here for the night," he said, "if you have room?"
"Room enough and to spare," the host replied. "There is no scarcity of rooms, though there is of good fare; a party of soldiers from Ghent paid a visit to us yesterday, and have scarce left a thing to eat in the village. However, I suppose we ought to feel thankful that they did not take our lives also."
"Peter," a shrill voice cried from inside the house, "how often have I told you not to be gossiping on public affairs with strangers? Your tongue will cost you your head presently, as I have told you a score of times."
"Near a hundred I should say, wife," the innkeeper replied. "I am speaking no treason, but am only explaining why our larder is empty, save some black bread, and some pig's flesh we bought an hour ago; besides, this youth is scarce likely to be one of the duke's spies."
"There you are again," the woman cried angrily. "You want to leave me a widow, and your children fatherless, Peter Grantz. Was a woman ever tormented with such a man?"
"I am not so sure that it is not the other way," the man grumbled in an undertone. "Why, wife," he went on, raising his voice, "who is there to say anything against us. Don't I go regularly to mass, and send our good priest a fine fish or the best cut off the joint two or three times a week? What can I do more? Anyone would think to hear you talk that I was a heretic."
"I think you are more fool than heretic," his wife said angrily; "and that is the best hope for us. But come in, boy, and sit down; my husband will keep you gossiping at the door for the next hour if you would listen to him."
"I shall not be sorry to sit down, mistress," Ned said entering the low roofed room. "I have walked from Axel since morning."
"That is a good long walk truly;" the woman said. "Are you going on to Brussels? If so, your nearest way would have been by Antwerp."