“You shall not see her again, then?” asked Walter, with a faint hope that her lover would strain every nerve in that direction, when he might accompany him.
“No,” was the determined answer. “Such a course would be fraught with risk to you. I might be seen and followed. Her father’s serving-men, coming hither by night, will pass unnoticed.”
“Do not consider me in that respect, I pray you.”
Roe shook his head and sighed.
“I am resolved,” he said. “We may not meet until I return, if God wills it. I told her as much last night. We said ‘farewell’; let it rest at that.”
So Walter’s heart sank into his boots, for the case between him and Nellie rested on as doubtful a basis as that between Roe and Anna.
He sat down to indite a letter to his mother, which Sir Thomas would entrust to one of his friends having affairs in the north. Roger could not write, but he sent a loving message to Mistress Sainton, with many quaint instructions as to the management of the garth and homestead.
“Tell her,” quoth he, “that I be going across seas to reive the Dons, and that I shall bring back to her a gold drinking-cup worthy of her oldest brew.”
“A man may catch larks if the heavens fall,” commented Walter in Rabelais’s phrase.
“Or if he lime a twig he may e’en obtain a sparrow. My auld mother will be pleased enough to see me if the cup be pewter. Write, man, and cheer her. I’ll warrant you have vexed Mistress Mowbray with a screed about yon wench you were sparking in the garden last night.”