His horse answered to the pressure of his knees and moved off upward through the crowd, Saint Simon following his track, and Denis coming last, having no little difficulty in closing up, for the increasing crowd obstructed his way, the people’s curiosity being aroused by the strangers.
“These horses for sale?” said the man who had been rebuffed, pressing up to the young esquire’s knee.
“No,” said the lad, in fairly good English. “Why?”
“Hallo!” said the man. “You are a Frenchman. Then you have brought these over to sell. Look here, young man, I can help your master to find a buyer in some great English lord. I deal in horses, and I’ll make it worth his while. Where are you going to stay?”
“I don’t know,” replied Denis. “Keep back, please. My horse doesn’t like crowding, and he may strike out.”
“I’ll take care,” said the man. “I understand horses. Yes, this is a nice animal you are riding too.”
Denis made no answer, but pressed forward. There was some shouting, but the crowd gave way and he rode up close just as the King drew rein by a gateway and then passed into a great inn-yard, where a couple of hostlers hurried to meet them, and a buxom-looking landlady in widow’s coif came smiling to the door of the comfortable-looking inn.
“Hah!” said the King, dismounting. “This looks like France. Here we can rest and dine. Denis, my boy, talk to the dame there, and tell her to get us quickly a dinner of the best.”
Denis turned, meeting the pleasant-faced landlady’s eye as he dismounted and threw his rein to one of the stablemen, noting, as he walked to where the landlady stood waiting, that the man who had accosted them was following into the inn-yard with three or four others of the same stamp; and the sight of the fellow made the lad hesitate as he thought of the possibility of the fellow’s insolence raising the King’s ire. But he had his task to fulfil, and the next moment the landlady was receiving him with bows and smiles, ready to show him into a comfortable old-fashioned room, and make his task easy by suggesting instead of taking orders, the only one he found it necessary to give being the simple one:
“Everything, and of the best; but quickly, for we have ridden far.”