He stood back on the instant, as a dog might have done being reproved. But I could hardly finish in comfort after that with him standing there, although when I next turned to him he seemed half asleep and his eyes were dull and fishy as ever.
"One thing you can do," I said brusquely. Then I hesitated, looking round me. I wished to send something to Petronilla, some word, some keepsake. But I had nothing that would serve a maid's purpose, and could think of nothing until my eye lit on a house-martin's nest, lying where I had cast it on the window-sill. I had taken it down that morning because the droppings during the last summer had fallen on the lead work, and I would not have it used when the swallows returned. It was but a bit of clay, and yet it would serve. She would guess its meaning.
I gave it into his hands. "Take this," I said, "and give it privately to Mistress Petronilla. Privately, you understand. And say nothing to any one, or the Bishop will flay your back, Martin."
CHAPTER III.
["DOWN WITH PURVEYORS!"]
The first streak of daylight found me already footing it through the forest by paths known to few save the woodcutters, but with which many a boyish exploration had made me familiar. From Coton End the London road lies plain and fair through Stratford-on-Avon and Oxford. But my plan, the better to evade pursuit, was, instead, to cross the forest in a northeasterly direction, and, passing by Warwick, to strike the great north road between Coventry and Daventry, which, running thence southeastward, would take me as straight as a bird might fly through Dunstable, St. Albans, and Barnet, to London. My baggage consisted only of my cloak, sword, and dagger; and for money I had but a gold angel, and a few silver bits of doubtful value. But I trusted that this store, slender as it was, would meet my charges as far as London. Once there I must depend on my wits either for providence at home or a passage abroad.
Striding steadily up and down hill, for Arden Forest is made up of hills and dells which follow one another as do the wave and trough of the sea, only less regularly, I made my way toward Wootton Wawen. As soon as I espied its battlemented church lying in a wooded bottom below me, I kept a more easterly course, and, leaving Henley-in-Arden far to the left, passed down toward Leek Wootton. The damp, dead bracken underfoot, the leafless oaks and gray sky overhead, nay the very cry of the bittern fishing in the bottoms, seemed to be at one with my thoughts; for these were dreary and sad enough.
But hope and a fixed aim form no bad makeshifts for happiness. Striking the broad London road as I had purposed I slept that night at Ryton Dunsmoor, and the next at Towcester; and the third day, which rose bright and frosty, found me stepping gayly southward, travel-stained indeed, but dry and whole. My spirits rose with the temperature. For a time I put the past behind me, and found amusement in the sights of the road; in the heavy wagons and long trains of pack-horses, and the cheery greetings which met me with each mile. After all, I had youth and strength, and the world before me; and particularly Stony Stratford, where I meant to dine.
There was one trouble common among wayfarers which did not touch me; and that was the fear of robbers, for he would be a sturdy beggar who would rob an armed foot-passenger for the sake of an angel; and the groats were gone. So I felt no terrors on that account, and even when about noon I heard a horseman trot up behind me, and rein in his horse so as to keep pace with me at a walk, step for step--a thing which might have seemed suspicious to some--I took no heed of him. I was engaged with my first view of Stratford, and did not turn my head. We had walked on so for fifty paces or more, before it struck me as odd that the man did not pass me.
Then I turned, and shading my eyes from the sun, which stood just over his shoulder, said, "Good-day, friend."