Hugo smiled. He thought it strange that a man so sensible, in many respects, as Humphrey should pin such faith to dreams. So he said teasingly: "How if thou get not the dream to-night, nor yet to-morrow night? Do we bide here until the dream come, if that be next Michaelmas?"
The serving-man seemed puzzled. Then he answered: "Nay, to be sure. Then would the summer be done; and, moreover, I never went so long without the right dream in my life."
Nearer and nearer drew the horsemen until, in the vale just opposite and below Hugo and Humphrey, they dismounted. "Here do we stop," said Walter Skinner. "I warrant you they be hereabouts, else have the fat priests lied when they denied they were in abbey and priory."
"Ay," answered one of the men-at-arms. "They be hereabouts, no doubt, if they be not farther to the east, when thy fellow will catch them if we miss them. I marvel thou hast not come up with them before now. Thou sayest this is the third day of their flight?"
This seeming to reflect on the ability of the pompous little Walter Skinner, he frowned. And drawing himself up importantly he said, "The young lord hath to his servant a Saxon who knoweth well these parts."
"Some deer-stealer, without doubt," observed the man-at-arms.
"And he goeth not straight forward," continued Walter Skinner, "else had I met him. But he creepeth here, and hideth there, and goeth in retired paths."
"And all to balk thee!" said the big man-at-arms, regarding with scarce concealed contempt the little strutting spy.
There was that in the manner of the man-at-arms that nettled Walter Skinner, so that he became more pompous than before and, resolved to show the soldier how high he stood in the king's counsel, he said haughtily: "Why, it were best he balk me, if he knew what will come to his young master when I find him. King John, as thou knowest, hath a special hatred toward his father, Lord De Aldithely."
"De Aldithely, sayest thou?" interrupted the man-at-arms.