"Ay, true, your worship," answered Longpole. "I forgot you were locked up all that while. But you must know that when Sir Payan returned yesterday he brought with him a little gentleman dressed in a black velvet doublet and crimson hose; but so small, so small he would be obliged to stand on tip-toe to look me into a tankard. Well, Sir Payan sent for me, and questioned me a great deal about the young lady who had been in with you; and he thought himself vastly shrewd; for certain he is cunning enough to cheat the devil out of a bed and a supper any day; but I did my best to blind him, and then he asked me for the key, and said he would keep it himself. So I was obliged to give up the only way I had of helping your worship; for I saw by that that Sir Payan suspected me, and would not trust me any more near you, which indeed he did not. Well, he made a speech to the little gentleman, and then left the room; and I suppose I looked at the bottom of my wits, for the little fellow says to me, 'Heartley! there's a window as well as a door.' So I started, first to find he knew my name, and secondly because he knew what I was thinking about. However, I thought there was no use to be angry with a man for picking my pocket of my thoughts without my knowing it; so I took it quietly, and answered, 'I know there is; but how shall I make him understand what he is to do?' 'Tell me what it is,' said he, 'and I will show you how.' So I don't know why, because he might have been a great cheat, but I told him; and thereupon he took a bit of parchment from his pocket, it might be half a skin, and a bit of whitish wax it looked like, out of a bottle, and made as if he wrote upon the parchment; but the more he wrote the less writing I could see. However, he gave me the piece of parchment, and told me to throw it in at the window after dark, with a heap more. I resolved to try, for I began to guess that the little old gentleman was a conjuror; and when I got into the dark, I found that the paper was all shining like a stinking fish; and your lordship knows the rest."
"He is an extraordinary man," said Sir Osborne. "But did you never hear your father speak of Sir Cesar?"
"I have heard my good dad talk about one Sir Cesar," said Longpole, "but I did not know that this was he. If I had I would have thanked him for many a kind turn he did for the two old folks while I was away. But does your worship see those heavy towers standing up over the trees to the left? That is the Benedictine Abbey, just out of Canterbury."
"That is where I am going," replied the knight, "if that be Wilsbourne."
"Wilsbourne or St. Cummin," answered Longpole; "they call it either. The abbot is a good man, they say, which is something to say for an abbot, as days go. Your abbey is a very silent discreet place; 'tis like purgatory, where a man gets quit of his sins without the devil knowing anything about it."
"Nay, nay, you blaspheme the cloister, Longpole," said the knight. "I have heard a great deal spoken against the heads of monasteries; but I cannot help thinking that as most men hate their superiors, some of the monks would be sure to blazon the sins of those above them, if they had so many as people say."
"Faith, they are too cunning a set for that," replied Longpole. "They have themselves a proverb, which goes to say, 'Let the world wag, do your own business, and always speak well of the lord abbot; so you shall feed well, and fare well, and sleep, while tolls the matin bell.' But your worship must turn up here, if you are really going to the abbey."
The knight signified that such was certainly his intention; and turning up the lane that led across to the abbey, in about a quarter of an hour he arrived at a little open green, bordered by the high wall that surrounded the gardens. The lodge, forming, as it were, part of the wall itself, stood exactly opposite, looking over the green, with its heavy wooden doors and small loophole windows. To it Longpole rode forward, and rang the bell; and on the appearance of an old stupid-faced porter, the knight demanded to see the lord abbot.
"You can see him at vespers in the church, if you like to go, any day," said the profound janitor, whose matter-of-fact mind comprehended alone the mere meaning of each word.
"But I cannot speak with him at vespers," said the knight. "I have a letter for him from his grace of Buckingham, and must speak with him."