"Ha!" cried the princess, starting up. "Let us go. Let us go at once. I will give instant orders."
"Nay, sweet lady," answered the piper. "In good sooth, my horse must have some time for rest; and my old bones are weary too; for I have had scanty fare and long riding."
"You shall have refreshment," said the princess. "I would not be unmerciful, even in my impatience; but yet we must set out to-night. I will not lay my head upon a pillow till I am upon the way. Now tell me, before I send you to get food and rest, who is the person to whom you take me?"
"Nay, that I know not," replied Sam. "I have given my message as I received it. I know no more."
"Now this is very strange," exclaimed Mary, "and raises doubts. I know not that I have injured any one, or that there is any who should wish to do me wrong; but yet I have found that men will wrong each other full often without a cause, sometimes without an object. Yet this cross, this cross! I will go, whatever befall. This cannot lie or cheat. I will go. But one thing at all events you can tell me. Whither are you going to lead me. You must know the place, if not the person."
"Ay, that I can tell, and may tell," replied Sam. "It is to the house of a poor honest Franklin, who labours his own land, in the heart of an old wood. A quiet and a secret place it is, nearly half way 'twixt Atherston and St. Clare. The man is a good and honest man too, lady, of more than seventy years of age, who lives in great retirement, rarely seen but once in every summer month at Atherston market, where he sells his corn and sheep; and when they are sold, he goes back upon his way, holding but little talk with any one."
"Seventy years of age," said the princess, thoughtfully. "Nay, that cannot be then."
"But indeed it is, lady," replied the piper, mistaking her meaning; "for I have known him twenty years myself and more, and have seen his hair grow grizzled grey, and then as white as snow."
"Did you ever know or hear," demanded the princess, "of a dying or wounded knight being carried thither, from any of the last combats that took place between Lancaster and York--I mean about the time of Tewksbury?"
"No," replied Sam; "but I was lying ill then, being hurt with a pike at Barnet, and could not walk for many a month."