"Lord Thomas left the castle an hour ago," replied the page, "and his servants are all gone likewise."
"So I thought, so I thought!" said De Montfort; "'Trust not soft seeming' is a good old saw. I might have been wiser than to put faith in one of the brood of Gloucester."
"But of the Ashbys, boy--speak of the Ashbys!" cried Lord Ralph Basset. "My heart is no true prophet if they play us not false likewise."
"They went out upon the Worcester road, the people of their inn declare," rejoined the boy, "within half an hour after they left the castle, and ere an hour was over all their people followed them, their steward paying the score."
"Let them go!" cried De Montfort, "we can afford to lose them. An unwilling hand is always well spared from a good cause. Besides, the greater loss puts out the less. One Edward is worth a whole shop full of Ashbys!" and with this contemptuous observation he turned to other matters again.
CHAPTER XIX.
The impediments of life, at which we fret and chafe in early years, and which we view with stern doubt and disappointment in that after period when the shortness of the space left to us renders each moment really as valuable as it only seems to be in the eagerness of youthful impatience--the impediments of life, I say--the things that check us in our impetuous course, and force us to pause and to delay--how often are they blessings instead of curses? How often is the object which they dash from our outstretched hands an evil rather than the good that we esteemed it!
Hugh de Monthermer, as we have shewn, rode away from the castle of Hereford about half an hour before Prince Edward. He chose the very road, and went on at great speed for about three miles; he then turned his horse into a path somewhat different from that which the Prince had chosen, but leading nearly in the same direction; and in that he proceeded at a rate which gave his five servants some trouble in keeping up with him. At length, however, his horse suddenly went lame, and on dismounting to see what was the matter, he found that a nail had run into the frog of the animal's foot; and although it was easily extracted, yet it was impossible to proceed at the same pace as before.
"Give me your horse, Peterkin," he said, "halting, and take mine slowly back to Hereford."
While the servant was changing the saddle, however, a countryman appeared on the road, driving some swine before him; and Hugh immediately walked up to him, asking, "Is this the way, my friend, to Monington Chapel?"