"Is Cliderhow alive?" inquired the stranger.
"Save us, pilgrim! where had you knowledge of the traitor?"
"Our good king Edward," continued the guest, apparently not attending to Giles's question in reply, "is still sorely beset with his enemies. Had a score of knaves such as Master Cliderhow been hanged long ago, his reign had been less burdensome both to prince and people."
"It's twelve years—ay, twelve," said Giles, reckoning the lapse on his fingers; "I know it by the great wind that beat down Master Markland's barn wall at the Meadows, since Cliderhow's sermon, inciting the whole parish to rebellion."
"I know it," replied the palmer: "he was in prison when I last knew of the matter."
"Ay, ay," returned Giles knowingly; "but threescore marks, disbursed discreetly to our good and loyal burgesses, made the doors as easy to open as my wicket—that is, at timely hours, ye understand."
"Is he at large?" inquired the other.
"They say he bides at Haigh," answered Boniface, "roistering it with that Welsh knight there, Sir Osmund Neville. I warrant Sir William's substance runs gaily down the old parson's throat."
Here the palmer threw the hood over his brows. Suddenly he arose: striding across the chamber with considerable speed,
he twice repeated the name of Sir Osmund Neville in a subdued tone, but with a bitterness of spirit that ill accorded with the outward habit of meekness which he had assumed.