"Did all men hold so," answered Gaunt Stilling, "many a famous general would have been defeated, many a famous army beaten, many a great victory lost."
"Not so," replied Ralph; "when I am at war, any property I can take from my enemy is mine, and his secrets against myself above all; but for opening any other letter except those intercepted from an enemy, there is no excuse. No man can tell what may be in them; no one can tell that secrets, which the writer would not have published for the world, and not at all affecting those to whose sense of honor they are confided, may not lie hid within that little fold of paper. Oh! how we ought to blush, if, venturing upon such an act on any pretense, we were to find within that which no man of honor ought ever to have seen. No, no, Stilling, I will never look into a letter intrusted to we, let the consequences to myself be what they may."
"I don't suppose the consequences could well be bad," replied Stilling, "for I suppose that no one would give you an open letter containing abuse of yourself, unless, indeed, they knew your prejudices about such things; so you can put the letter by, and give it to the duke in all safety, I believe."
"I have another letter for the duke," replied Ralph, "which I shall deliver first, as I know who it comes from."
Ralph somewhat quickened his pace, but Gaunt Stilling, though exceedingly respectful, seemed to have a will of his own, and not to be at all inclined to over-hurry the beast that bore him. He lingered behind, then, and the conversation consequently dropped. At the end of about a mile and a half, however, Ralph, who had ridden on for about three or four hundred yards, and might well be supposed by any observer to have no connection with the young man who followed, had his ear attracted by some sound behind him, and, turning round his head, beheld his new servant off his horse, and undergoing the very unpleasant process of being well cudgeled by three stout men. It was a woody part of the country, properly suited for an ambush, somewhat like the scenes which the famous Dutch painter chose for his attacks by banditti. To save him as much as possible from the infliction which he was undergoing, Ralph returned at full speed; and as Stilling was struggling with all his might, which was not little, and had nearly mastered one of his opponents, although the others were beating him all the time, his master's coming to his help turned the strife in his favor. An immediate inclination to flight displayed itself on the part of his assailants; but Ralph contrived to get a thrust at one of them with his sword-blade ere he ran away, and, at all events, drew blood; while Stilling, taking advantage of the assistance afforded, pummeled the one on whom he had principally fixed his attention in no very gentle manner before he let him go.
The men, who speedily disappeared in the wood, were disguised with handkerchiefs tied round and partly over their faces; but Stilling seemed either to know them, or to have very little curiosity; for when his master asked him in one breath whether he was hurt, and if he knew the men who had attacked him, or their object, he replied, very briefly, that he was not hurt, and as to the men, that he knew all about them, and what brought them there. He showed, in short, so little disposition to be communicative, that Ralph resolved to ask no further questions, but only bidding him follow more closely, hurried on at a quicker pace than ever, and soon after reached a better-beaten and more-traveled road.
CHAPTER IX.
There is in the fine old town of Norwich, I believe, even to the present day, the remains of a whilom inn, which once stood not far from the River Wansum. Now nothing remains of it but a gable or two, transmuted to purposes very much below the dignity of receiving two-legged guests. Then, however, it was the principal inn in Norwich; and a great change had come over the state and condition of our inns since the time of Chaucer. In that day, inns had reached, in England, very nearly the climax of perfection. Hotels were an abomination unknown, although the name, descended from ancient times, still lingered in various parts of the country. Cleanliness, neatness, perfect ease, and independence characterized the inn of former years; the linen was white as snow; the food was generally of the best kind, however plain the cookery. There a man might take the world as it came; there he might pass his time as in a dream, obtruded upon by none of the hard realities of life, so long as he had in his purse wherewith to satisfy the demands of his host, which in those days were not very extravagant. There he might escape the impertinence, the annoyance, the importunity of the world. There he might riot or revel, muse or meditate, or read or write, or think or sleep, just as he pleased, without interruption. It afforded the most perfect species of liberty, the old English inn, without having any of the drawbacks of confusion and anarchy. No tax-gatherer ever came there, at least with the knowledge of the guests. The constable, even, was seen drinking his pot, or ladling out his punch, or smoking his pipe, with the other friendly persons round the bar, and, so long as order and decency were maintained, and perhaps a little longer, no one interfered with the quiet and ease that reigned within. The inn of the Half Moon, at the time I mention, was one of this sort; and toward it, in the first instance, as directed by others of experience, Ralph Woodhall took his way on his arrival in the city of Norwich, on a somewhat gloomy morning, about eleven o'clock. Before he took rest, however, or did more than brush his clothes from dust, and take off the heavy saddle-bags from their convenient position behind the saddle, to let his beast get a little refreshment and food, Ralph remounted, and rode away to another part of the town, higher up upon the Wansum. This was the old house, or palace of the old Dukes of Norfolk, in which, during their brief terms of residence in Norwich, they kept up in a limited sphere the state and dignity of a sovereign prince.
There had been some doubt in the mind of Ralph, when he arrived in the city, as to whether the nobleman on whom fancy, for the time, seemed to make his hopes depend, was in the town or not; but, as he passed along the streets, the number of servants which he saw in the Howard liveries, and the gayety and bustle which pervaded one quarter of the city, showed him that, so far as finding the duke, his first expectations were likely to be fulfilled. The antique gate-way, with a number of servants crowded under it--the wall surrounding the grounds extending to the river--the massive pile itself of the principal building, did not much impress him; for he thought it very much like one of the colleges at Cambridge, to which his eye was well accustomed. Appearing on horseback, and with a servant behind him, the gates were moved back by the retainers in the porch to give him admission into the court; and, descending there, he was led--while Stilling remained to look after the horses--to a little chamber on the ground floor called the Chamberlain's Office. There he explained his business by simply saying that he brought a letter for the duke from Lord Woodhall; and the grave-looking officer to whom he spoke, looking at the letter in his hand, led him into a waiting-room, where he found three other persons already in attendance on the duke's leisure. Each man was amusing the weary moments of expectation as best he might; one looking out of the window, which displayed an orchard in full beauty; one walking up and down the room, with eyes fixed upon the floor and hands behind the back; and one seated at a large table examining some books, which had been laid there, probably, to beguile the time. Patience and silence seemed to be the order of the day, and Ralph, after looking curiously at the splendid furniture which decorated even that plain room, betook himself to one of those volumes, which soon afforded him amusement to pass half an hour pleasantly. While he read, one after another of his companions in attendance was called out of the room, and at length, laying down the book, he fell into a revery, of that kind which often comes upon us at vacant moments--when brief summings up of the testimony borne by events to the progress of our fate, during a certain period just past, are made by memory, and left to the judgment of the mind, to see if any thing can be made of the case or not.
The great step was taken. Here he was, many miles from home, "seeking his fortune," as the term was then. He had entered the house of one who could at will advance his views or neglect his cause, with nothing to recommend him but one letter from a distant relation, and one from a person he did not know. Something, however, bearing on his destiny was to be decided soon, and he felt all that eager, fluttering anxiety of youth, which every man in early years must have experienced when the great object of the moment was in the balance. There was not much cause for hope, indeed; and expectation, even under the exaggeration of youth, could hardly see space to stand upon; but love is a great fanner of the flame of hope; and love was always mingling a word with all Ralph's cogitations.