“To King Edward in London, with another that I will write for you ere the dawn.”
“But is it safe, Father, to trust so precious a thing to me, who have bitter enemies awaiting me, and may as like as not be crow’s meat by to-morrow?”
Father Arnold looked at him with his soft and dreamy eyes, then said:
“I think the crow’s not hatched that will pick your bones, Hugh, though at the last there be crows, or worms, for all of us.”
“Why not, Father? Doubtless, this morning young John of Clavering thought as much, and now he is in the stake-nets, or food for fishes.”
“Would you like to hear, Hugh, and will you keep it to yourself, even from Eve?”
“Ay, that I would and will.”
“He’ll think me mad!” muttered the old priest to himself, then went on aloud as one who takes a sudden resolution. “Well, I’ll tell you, leaving you to make what you will of a story that till now has been heard by no living man.”
“Far in the East is the great country that we call Cathay, though in truth it has many other names, and I alone of all who breathe in England have visited that land.”
“How did you get there?” asked Hugh, amazed, for though he knew dimly that Father Arnold had travelled much in his youth, he never dreamed that he had reached the mystic territories of Cathay, or indeed that such a place really was except in fable.