“Yes,” said I, beginning to see the drift of his coil, “and if you had told me so at first, I had been half-way back to get it by this time. Heaven is my witness, you are welcome to the cloak if that is what it contains; and I doubt not my friend will give it up to do you a pleasure.”
“Hasten!” cried he, with tears of vexation in his eyes, “there is not a moment to be lost—nay, I will go with you. Where did you leave it? Come!”
“Nay,” said I, remembering it for the first time, “I am not very sure where it was. ’Twas at a river-side inn, about four miles from here.”
“And who is your friend? Is he a true man?”
“I know not that either,” said I. “He is a valiant man, and hath a dirk at his girdle; and I pity the man who tries to take the cloak from him by force.”
Master Penry made another speech to himself in Welsh.
“Fool!” exclaimed he, half blubbering. “This precious missive you leave at an inn you know not where; with a man you know not whom; and yet your master speaks of you as a trusty lad. Bah! Lead on!”
I swallowed my wrath and obeyed him. He stalked impatiently at my side, saying nothing, but urging me forward so that I could scarcely keep pace with him. I was in luck, in one way, to have his escort; for as I came near the East Bridge, there lurked not a few of the townsmen who had been in the fight when I assaulted the Mayor. Seeing me with Master Penry, who, I suppose, was a man of some standing, they did not look twice at me; else I might have been caught, and put to rest my limbs in the cage. When we had crossed the bridge, and were in the country, my companion suddenly stopped.
“This friend of yours,” said he, “with the dirk in his girdle. Was he a scholar?”
“He lent me this gown,” said I.