“Not Dexter,” said the fellow, looking at me in amaze. “Why, man, what ails you?”
“Tell me his name, as you love me,” said I.
“How should I know the name of every cowardly hound that walks the streets? Go and ask them that can tell you.”
I walked away miserable, and waited at the Aldersgate to see the prisoners come by.
When at last the cry was raised, I scarcely durst look up, for fear that among them should tower the form of Ludar. But when I lifted my eyes and saw only six hang-dog men, who held their hands to their ears to keep out the yelling of the mob, and shrunk closer to their guards to save them from a worse fate than the hangman’s, the beating of my heart eased. For he was not amongst them. So joyful was I that I could even lend my voice for a while to the general cry, and, when night fell, bring my torch to the flaming barrels that blazed on Finsbury Fields.
Yet I came home that night ill at ease. Fresh news had arrived already that other men had been taken in the country—amongst them, certain who had been in attendance on the Scotch Queen. Yet, ask all I would, never once could I hear of Ludar by name, or of any man resembling him.
A month later we ’prentices had another holiday, this time to witness the end of that terrible business on Tyburn Hill. ’Twas a horrible sight—I would I could forget it—to see those traitors die, foul as their crime had been. Yet what sickened me the most was to think that Ludar perchance might presently follow to the same fate, if indeed he had not already shared it.
But no news came. The weeks slipped by. Men ceased to talk of Babington, and spoke rather of the coming trial of the Scotch Queen for her life. And presently a time came when they even ceased to speak of that. And all the while, never a whisper came to me of Ludar.
Now you are not to think that all this time I had forgot the message contained in the poet’s letter concerning Captain Merriman and the maiden. Far from it. I haunted Whitehall after work hours in the hope of seeing or hearing something of them. But all in vain. It would have been easier to hear of Ludar, I think, than to get any news of an Irish maiden and her step-dame at Court, or of a swaggering captain.
“What is that to thee?” said most whom I asked; and others pricked me out of their company with their swords.