“Good, then,” said Nick, “’tis done—we’ll go. Come, Cicely, we’re going home!”
Staring, the carrier followed him, weighing the chain in his hairy hand. “Who art thou, boy?” he cried again. “This matter hath a queer look.”
“’Twas honestly come by, sir,” cried Nick, no longer able to conceal a quiver in his voice, “and my name is Nicholas Attwood; I come from Stratford town.”
“Stratford-on-Avon? Why, art kin to Tanner Simon Attwood there, Attwood of Old Town?”
“He is my father, sir. Oh, leave us go with thee—take the whole chain!”
Slap went the carrier’s cap in the dirt! “Leave thee go wi’ me? Gadzooks!” he cried, “my name be John Saddler—why, what? my daddy liveth in Chapel lane, behind Will Underhill’s. I stole thy father’s apples fifteen years. What! go wi’ me? Get on the wain, thou little fool—get on all the wains I own, and a plague upon thine eightpence, lad! Why, here; Hal telled me thou wert dead, or lost, or some such fairy tale! Up on the sheepskin, both o’ ye!”
The Dutchman came from the tap-room door and spoke to the tapster’s knave; but the words which he spoke to that tapster’s knave were anything but Dutch.
CHAPTER XXXVI
WAYFARING HOME
At Kensington watering-place, five miles from London town, Nick held the pail for the horses of the Oxford man. “Hello, my buck!” quoth he, and stared at Nick; “where under the sun didst pop from all at once?” and, looking up, spied Cicely upon the carrier’s wain. “What, John!” he shouted, “thou saidst there were no more!”