“Y’ are poorly grown to height, then,” answered Dick. “But take my hand. We shall go softly, never fear. I owe you a life; I am a good repayer, Jack, of good or evil.”
They began to go forward up the slope.
“We must hit the road, early or late,” continued Dick; “and then for a fresh start. By the mass! but y’ have a rickety hand, Jack. If I had a hand like that I would think shame. I tell you,” he went on, with a sudden chuckle, “I swear by the mass I believe Hugh Ferryman took you for a maid.”
“Nay, never!” cried the other, colouring high.
“’A did, though, for a wager!” Dick exclaimed. “Small blame to him. Ye look liker maid than man: and I tell you more—y’ are a strange-looking rogue for a boy; but for a hussy, Jack, ye would be right fair—ye would. Ye would be well-favoured for a wench.”
“Well,” said Matcham, “ye know right well that I am none.”
“Nay, I know that; I do but jest,” said Dick. “Ye’ll be a man before your mother, Jack. What cheer, my bully? Ye shall strike shrewd strokes. Now, which, I marvel, of you or me, shall be first knighted, Jack? for knighted I shall be, or die for ’t. ‘Sir Richard Shelton, Knight’: it soundeth bravely. But ‘Sir John Matcham’ soundeth not amiss.”
“Prithee, Dick, stop till I drink,” said the other, pausing where a little clear spring welled out of the slope into a gravelled basin no bigger than a pocket. “And O, Dick, if I might come by anything to eat!—my very heart aches with hunger.”
“Why, fool, did ye not eat at Kettley?” asked Dick.
“I had made a vow—it was a sin I had been led into,” stammered Matcham; “but now, if it were but dry bread, I would eat it greedily.”