“But your friend?” said he, still wavering. “Him that is dead——”
“As good a man as ever rolled a barrel,” said I.
He relaxed his grip of the door. “’Tis a sore business for me this night,” he complained.
“Nay,” said I. “For I will rid your premises of myself and friend, by your leave, or without it,” says I.
He seemed relieved at that, and I entered. The horses were safe, as I discovered, for Grubbe must have been too full of his own prime business to make search, and, getting them out, I made my preparations. I strapped the lad’s body in the stirrups, so that he lay forward on the horse with his head a-wagging; but (God deliver him!) his soul at rest. And presently we were on the road, and threading the wilderness of the black pine woods for the vale below toward London.
The moon was a glimmering arc across the Hurtwood as I came out on the back of Shere, and, pulling out of the long lane that gave entry to the village, reined up by the “White Horse.” From the inn streamed a clamor of laughter, and without the doorway and wellnigh blocking it was drawn up a carriage with a coachman on his seat that struck my eyes dimly in the small light. I was not for calling eyes on me with a dead man astride his horse, so I moved into the yard, thinking to drain a tankard of ale if no better, before I took the road over the downs to Effingham. But I was scarce turned into the yard ere a light flaring through the window poured on a face that changed all the notions in my skull. ’Twas Grubbe!
Leaving the horses by I returned to the front of the inn, and says I to the coachman that waited there, as I rapped loud on the door:
“’Tis shrewish tonight.”
“Aye,” says he in a grumbling, surly voice. “I would the country were in hell.”
“Why, so ’twill be in good time,” said I cheerfully; and then to the man that came, “Fetch me two quarts well laced with gin,” says I, “for to keep the chill of the night and the fear o’ death out.”