"Well, well, adieu, friend!"
"And a safe journey to your worship—Just four o' the clock, an' a bright sunshiny morning," called out the old man, trudging on and ringing his bell with such tremendous energy, as if to make up for any little delays, that it completely drowned the clatter of Stars and Garters' hoofs as she cantered over the cobble-stones of the High Street.
Another horseman.
Meanwhile Lawrence Lee, only halting to snatch a meal by the way, and to give his horse half an hour's rest, reached Stanstead Church, just as the youngsters let loose from morning dame school were pranking among the gravestones, and plundering the hawthorn hedges. Tired out, but lighter of heart than he could remember for many a long day, he threw them a gay quip as he passed. Bang, clash, rattle, went the churchyard wicket, away all over the dusty road the poor may blossoms, scattered and trampled under ruthless little feet all trotting after the big horse's legs. And no marvel neither; for let alone the merry jokes of Master Lee, who always was the most popular creature in the world with the young fry of the neighbourhood, there was a thing to be seen popping its head in and out of the deep pocket of his doublet in the most strange fashion. Head, forsooth! a bunch of brown satin ribbons you mean, or some fairing of the sort for Mistress Ruth Rumbold, that wobbled to and fro with the horse's movements.
"'Tis a dog."
"Naa, 'tes a dog, tell'ee," whispered a five-year-old wiseacre under his breath.
"Dog!" contemptuously laughed a wise virgin of six, whose canine circle of acquaintance was limited to huge farm mastiffs and gypsy curs. "'Tes a silk pincush'n for Madam Lee, cain't you see the brown and whoite bows to the corners o't."
"Pincush'n! bows! Thems its ears an' its oyes a gogglin'. Pincush'ns doesn't goggle their oyes; 'tes a dog, ain't it, Marster Lee?"
"Something of the sort," answered Lee, carefully drawing the little King Charles from his snug hiding-place, and exhibiting its roly-poly body to the public gaze; but the shrieks of delight greeting its appearance, so startled its unaccustomed ears, that terror got the better of Master Médor's courtly breeding, and sent him scuffling back into the recesses of his friend's riding-coat; and amidst a general groan at this disappointing man[oe]uvre, Lee ambled on at a good round trot, which quickly brought him within sight of the grass-grown broken tower tops of Nether Hall. It was now close upon mid-day, and the sun shone hotly, so that the deserted look of the meadows where the haymakers had just commenced work would have occasioned their young proprietor small surprise, even could his preoccupied mind have spared the matter a thought. Just a day it was for creeping away into the shade of the hedges, or of the alders overhanging the cool water shallows, to munch your rye-bread and bacon, and drink your draught of milk or small-beer out of your old tin can; and one or two old crippled men and women seemed the only folks in the way to give the master a welcome home.
A posse comitatus.