"I fear me, Ned Dyram," said Richard of Woodville, smiling, "I shall lose much time with you, in getting crooked answers to plain questions; but if you have puzzled your own brains with logic, puzzle not mine."
"Well, well, sir," answered the other, "I will be brief, for I am hungry, and you are tired. I am the son of a Franklin, who broke his heart to make me a clerk. I had, however, no gift for singing, and turned my wits to other things. I can do what men can generally do, and sometimes better than they can. I have broken a man's head one day, and healed it the next; for I have handled a quarter-staff and served a leech. I can cast nativities, and draw a horoscope; I can make a horse-shoe, and sharpen a sword; I can write court hand, and speak more tongues than my own; I can cook my own dinner, when need be, and bake or brew, if the sutler or the tapster should fail me."
"A goodly list of qualities, indeed," said Richard of Woodville; "and though my household is not the most princely, we will find you an office, Ned Dyram, which you must exercise with discretion; and now, as you are hungry, get you gone to my people, who will stop that evil. We have supped."
The messenger withdrew; and Sir Henry Dacre returned the letter, which he still held in his hand, to Woodville, saying, "So this was the Prince? the more cruel in him to sport with the peace of his father's subjects."
"Not so, Dacre," replied his friend. "I told you I could explain his conduct; and it is but justice to him to do so; for he intended to be kind, not cruel."
Dacre shook his head gloomily.
"Well, you shall hear," continued Woodville. "When I first brought him to my uncle's gate, I knew not who he was; but he had scarcely entered the hall, when I remembered him. I kept my own counsel, however, and said nothing; but when he sought his room, I went with him as you saw, and there for a whole hour we spoke of those we had left below. I told him nothing, Harry; for his quick eye had gleaned the truth wherever it turned; and I had only to set him right on some things regarding the past. He knew you by name, and took interest in your fate as well as mine. I would fain tell you all; but in the mood in which you are, I fear that I may pain you."
"Speak, Dick, speak," answered the knight; "have we not been as brothers since our boyhood, that you may not give me all your thoughts freely? Say all you have to say. Keep nought behind, if you love me; for I have grown as suspicious as the rest, and shall doubt if I see you hesitate."
"Well, at all risks," said Richard of Woodville, "it is better to give you some pain, perhaps, than to leave you with your present thoughts. We talked, then, first of myself and Mary Markham, and then of you and Catherine. He saw you loved her not."
"'Twas her own fault," cried Dacre: "she crushed out love that might once have been deep and true."