It surprised me that when it came to asking my master and mistress they gave their leave after but a short parley. For the two maids were so bound together, and the lot of the one was so pitiful and desolate, that it seemed, after all, not too great a boon to ask. And when Jeannette herself seconded the request, and I encouraged it, they yielded.
In truth, my master was just then so full of his work and of the peril he ran, that I think he was all the better disposed to see one of his family thus provided for. Besides, he might safely reckon on the more work from me, when I should have naught to tempt me nightly from my case. As for my mistress, she was already making ready to take her younger children to visit a gossip of hers, one Mistress Crane; and it eased her of some little difficulty to find her party lightened by one for a season.
So all fell out well for the maiden, and sorrowfully for me. Yet, when she reproached herself for her selfishness in robbing me of my sweetheart, I had not the heart to show her all I felt. In sooth, this maiden needed a friend and comforter sorely; and how was she to fare on that long troublesome journey with no comrade but a rough man, and perchance a half-witted poet? For the poet, vowing that Aphrodite should never need for a gallant, nor a maiden in distress for a knight, begged so hard to go too, that she was fain to yield and admit him of the party.
’Twas late in March when our house was left desolate. On the last evening before they went, she asked me to row her and Jeannette once again on the river. I guessed why she asked, and needed no telling which course to take.
And as our boat lay on the oars beneath the shadow of that gloomy tower, she looked up long and wistfully, as one who takes a long farewell. Then with a sigh she motioned to me to turn the boat’s head and row home.
Not a word did any of us say during that sad voyage. Only, when we reached home and I handed her from the boat, she said—
“Humphrey, I am glad you are staying near him.”
So, then, I discovered, she believed him living still and that I should see him again.
That night, as Jeannette and I stood in the garden watching the moonbeams play on the water, and feeling our hearts very heavy at the parting that was to come, we heard the splashing of an oar at the river side, and presently a man stepped up the bank and stood before us, saluting. At first I was so startled that my hand went to my belt, and I had out my sword in a twinkling. But I sent it home again directly I heard his voice, and recognised not an enemy but that same Jack Gedge whom Ludar had charged long ago at Dunluce to see to the maiden.
Only two days since, he told us, had he been let out of Rochester gaol; when he had gone forthwith to Canterbury and heard from mine host at the “Oriflame” that a certain printer’s ’prentice by name Dexter, if any one, could tell him what had befallen the nunnery maiden. Whereupon he had travelled all the way to London in a day, and had not been able to hear of me. But, spying us just now in a boat, as he stood near London Bridge, he had taken craft and followed us, and here he was, ready to take up his charge, and, whether we willed it or no, look after the maiden.