"To shrive a harlot, or a barrel of sack!" grumbled an angry voice from within. "I will get up for none of ye; and if I did, I could not open the gate wide enough at this hour of the night for the fat friar of Barnesdale to roll his belly out."
"'Tis neither he of Barnesdale nor Tuck either," cried the boy, "but a holy priest come from the castle."
"Then he had better go back whence he came," replied the warder. "Get you gone, or I will throw that over thee which will soil thy garments for many a day. Get thee gone, I say, and let me sleep, till these foul revelling lords come down from the castle, who go out every night to lie at Lamley."
A noise of prancing horses, and of eager voices, was heard the moment after coming rapidly down the hill; and Hugh de Monthermer, putting his hand under his black robe, seized the hilt of the anelace, or sharp knife, which had been accidentally left with him when his sword was taken away.
"I will sell my life dearly," he said, speaking to the dwarf.
"Stand in the dark," whispered Tangel, "and they will not see you;--these are the Lords who sleep out of the town."
Hugh de Monthermer had scarcely time to draw back when a troop of horsemen, who had in fact left the castle before him, came down to the gate having followed the highway, while he had taken a shorter cut by some of the many flights of steps of which the good town of Nottingham was full.
"What ho!" cried a voice, which the young lord recognised right well. "Open the gate. Are you the warder's boy?"
"No, please you, noble lord," replied Tangel. "And I cannot make old surly Matthew Pole draw a bolt or turn a key, although he knows we are in haste."
"What ho! open the gate," repeated the voice in a loud tone. "How know you that I am a noble lord, my man?"