The Earl's kinsman, however, either did not, or affected not to know the person who approached him, and the lord's man was obliged to enter into explanations as to who he was, and what was his errand.
"Ha!" said Richard de Ashby, "danger at York, is there? My good lord, your master, has brought us down here for nothing, then, it seems. I know not how my kinsman, the Earl of Ashby, will take this, for he loves not journeying to be disappointed."
"My lord does not intend to disappoint the Earl," replied the serving-man; "he will give him the meeting in the course of to-morrow--somewhere."
"Know you not where?" demanded the gentleman; and, as the servant turned his eyes, with a doubtful glance, to the spot where the peasant was seated, the other added, "Come hither with me upon the green, where there are no idle ears to overhear."
If his words were meant as a hint for Hardy to quit the room, it was not taken; for the hunchback remained fixed to the table, having recourse from time to time to his jug of ale, and looking towards the door more than once, after Sir Richard and the lord's man had quitted the chamber.
Their conference was apparently long, and at length, first one of the gentleman's servants, and then another, entered the little low-roofed room, and approached the table at which the peasant sat.
"Hallo! what hast thou got here, bumpkin?" cried one of them--"wine for such a carle as thou art!" and, as he spoke, he took up the tankard from which the serving-man had been drinking.
"That is neither thine nor mine," replied Hardy, "so you had better let it alone."
"Heyday!" cried the servant of the great man's kinsman; "rated by a humpbacked ploughman! If it be not thine, fellow, hold thy tongue, for it can be nothing to thee! I shall take leave to make free with it, however," and, pouring out a cup, he tossed it off.
"You must be a poor rogue," said the peasant, "to be so fond of drinking at another man's cost, as not to pay for your liquor even by a civil word."