“Perhaps you can find out if you read the book,” suggested Audry. “It certainly must be of some importance or they would not have taken all that trouble to hide the book and also the parchment in the book. Let us sit down and see what you can make of it.”
So they sat down and Aline was soon deeply interested in the account of the building, how the great dining hall was erected first, then the buttery, pantry and kitchen and afterwards the beautiful solar. Audry found her interest flag; although, when it came to the building of her room and the cost of the different items, she brightened up. “Still,” she said, “I do not see why all this should be kept so secret; any one might know all that we have read.”
There was one thing that seemed to promise interest, but apparently it led to nothing. At the beginning of the book was a dedication which could be translated thus: “To my heirs trusting that this may serve them as it has served me.” But in what way it was to serve them did not appear, and the evening was closing in and it was getting dark, but the children were as far as ever from discovering the meaning of the phrase or of the parchment with the holes.
“Let us take it to our room,” Aline said at last; “it is not chained like the others. We can hide it in the armoire and read with the little lamp when the others have gone to sleep and no one is likely to come in.”
So they put the piece of parchment to mark the place, ran to their room and hid the book and went to join the rest of the family.
It was nearly time for rere-supper[3] and Master Richard Mowbray had just come in. He was dripping wet and the water ran down in long streams across the floor. “Gramercy,” he exclaimed, “it is not a fit day for a dog let alone a horse or a man. Come and pull off my boots, wench,” he went on, catching sight of Aline.
[3] A meal taken about 8 o’clock.
He sat down and Aline with her little white hands manfully struggled with the great boots. “You are not much good at it,” he said roughly, when at last she succeeded in tugging off the first one. “Ah, well, never mind,” he added, when he saw her wince at his words, and stooped and kissed her and called to one of the men to come and take off the other boot. “You cannot always live on a silk cushion, lassie,” he went on, not unkindly, “you must work like the rest of us.”
“It is a strange thing where that man can have got,” he continued; “in all this rain it is impossible that he can have gone far.”