“Ask for Tom Price,” said he; “they all know me. And on the day you’re Lord Mayor of London, which I take it is not far hence, find me a humble seat below the salt at your lordship’s table; and so farewell.”
I felt it lonely enough after my company had left; besides which, I clean lost my way, and was forced at last to seek the river and guide myself by that. Heavy work it was; for the river’s bank was swampy and often impassable with bushes and woods, so that I had to go miles out of my way to circumvent them, leading my horse by the hand. At last, when I hardly knew where I was, night fell; and worn-out with weariness and hunger, I made for the first house I could see—which chanced to be an inn—and resolved to go no farther that night.
Had I gone on, I am certain of one thing, which is, that this veritable history would never have been written. For I should not then have met the wild person who, just as I stood unharnessing my nag at the door, dashed past me and flung himself into the house.
Chapter Four.
How I met a Runaway Scholar.
As I entered the poor kitchen of the inn—for it was a sorry shed altogether—there rose to meet me a figure which, if I live to Methuselah’s age, I shall not easily forget. He was tall and had the limbs of a giant. His hair was tawny and inclined to red, and hung in disorderly waves on his shoulders. His raiment—for he had flung his scholar’s cap and robe to a corner of the room—was poor and ragged, and seemed scarcely to hang together on his brawny back. His arms were long and nervous, and the hands at the end of them twitched uneasily even while the rest of his body was motionless. His carriage was erect and martial, and you knew not whether to admire most the weight and solidity of the man as he stood still, or the tiger-like spring in every limb when he moved.
Yet it was not one of these things which made me stand almost in awe as I saw him. It was his face, which, if ever a man’s face deserved the name, was beautiful. I cannot explain why; for I have seen features more finely carved and better proportioned in faces which never seemed to me so beautiful as his. I have seen more strength of mouth, more light of eyes, many a time, and yet never looked twice; I have seen faces as noble which never struck me as his did. I know not how it was. I think it was the expression which moulded all his face into a look, partly wild, partly noble, partly sad, and wholly gentle. For as you watched it, it changed like an April day from cloud to fair, from thunder to lightning, from night to day; yet whatever came or went, the look of a gentle man remained.
Man, did I say? He was scarcely my senior, even if he was my equal in years; and his beardless chin and the boyish glow on his cheek made him seem younger than he was.