In great fear he had fled from Newark at the instance of the courtier, but his courage, after three days of wandering, had returned to him; for his hope of one day being a duke died hard. "Though I be the king's spy no longer," he had said to himself, "I have been the king's spy. Therefore I have had a certain measure of preferment and may hope for more." And in this humor he had come into Dunstable by way of the Icknield Street, and by chance had chosen the very inn Humphrey had selected. That he had fled from Newark and was no longer in pursuit of them Humphrey did not know; and he, accordingly, withdrew deeper into the concealment of his hood, while Hugo did the same.
As for Walter Skinner, he looked at them with contempt. "Here cometh a beggarly priest and a novice," he thought, "to keep company at the table with me. I will none of it." And he said haughtily to the innkeeper: "Worthy host, I have no liking to priests. Seat them not at the table with me. Give me thy company, if it please thee, but serve the priest and his novice elsewhere."
The innkeeper happened to be in a surly humor. Certain affairs had gone
contrary and vexed him. Therefore he made answer: "I keep but one table.
There may ye all feed or ye may look elsewhere. There be other inns."
And he added slowly and impressively, "They—be—all—full—also."
"Why, here be a circumstance!" cried Walter Skinner. "The inns of this town be full, sayest thou? Why, all the inns in London be not full, I warrant thee. And why should they be full here in this bit of a town, with one street running this way, and one another way, like a cross? I would have thee to know that I have been servant to the king, and am used to be served accordingly."
"And what service hast thou done the king?" demanded the surly innkeeper, unbelievingly.
"I did watch from the top of the high tree the De Aldithely castle," was the boastingly given answer. "I did see the young lord and his serving-man flee through the postern and enter the wood." He was about to rehearse all the particulars of his pursuit of the runaways when the innkeeper interrupted him.
"Thou must, then," said he, "be the spy for whom the king is looking, and I will give thee to him."
"Nay, nay," said Walter Skinner, his fierceness all gone as he suddenly remembered the warning given him in Newark by the courtier who had set him free. "That thou mayest not do. I do journey toward the south. Thou mayest not delay me."
"I could if I would," returned the innkeeper, his surly mood vanishing as he saw before him the opportunity of enjoying himself by tormenting somebody. "But thou art such a sprat of a man that my compassion forbids me. The king looketh for thee to hear thee tell what thou knowest of the whereabouts of the young lord and his companion. If thou canst not tell, he will have thy head; so hath he sworn. For he is in an evil rage, and heads are as nothing to him when he rageth, as thou knowest. He searcheth also for the bailiff who had thee in charge and let thee escape. I warrant thee the bailiff hath a wit too sound to go proclaiming how he was some great man, even a bailiff in the town of Newark."
All this was lost on Walter Skinner, however, who grasped but one thought, that he was in danger, and had but one anxiety, how to escape it. He turned now with some degree of humility to Humphrey.