The boy looked at him with the same earnest horror.
“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” he said, and there was a piteous sob in his voice. “Indeed it is all true: but I do not often go on these messages for my master. Mr. Roger generally goes: but he is sick.”
“Oho!” said Lackington, “you did not say that yesterday.”
The boy was terrified.
“No, sir,” he cried out miserably, “the gentleman did not ask me.”
“Well, who is Mr. Roger? What is he like?”
“He is my master’s servant, sir; and he wears a patch over his eye; and stutters a little in his speech.”
These kinds of details were plainly beyond a frightened lad’s power of invention, and Lackington was more satisfied.
“And what was the message that you were to give to the folk and the priest?”
“Please, sir, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’”