“What, Master Roland, abroad on this side, and without either hawk or hound?”
“Hawk or hound,” said Roland, “I will never perhaps hollo to again. I have been dismissed—that is, I have left the castle.”
Ralph was surprised. “What! you are to pass into the Knight's service, and take the black jack and the lance?”
“Indeed,” replied Roland Graeme, “I am not—I am now leaving the service of Avenel for ever.”
“And whither are you going, then?” said the young peasant.
“Nay, that is a question which it craves time to answer—I have that matter to determine yet,” replied the disgraced favourite.
“Nay, nay,” said Ralph, “I warrant you it is the same to you which way you go—my Lady would not dismiss you till she had put some lining into the pouches of your doublet.”
“Sordid slave!” said Roland Graeme, “dost thou think I would have accepted a boon from one who was giving me over a prey to detraction and to ruin, at the instigation of a canting priest and a meddling serving-woman? The bread that I had bought with such an alms would have choked me at the first mouthful.”
Ralph looked at his quondam friend with an air of wonder not unmixed with contempt. “Well,” he said, at length, “no occasion for passion—each man knows his own stomach best—but, were I on a black moor at this time of day, not knowing whither I was going, I should be glad to have a broad piece or two in my pouch, come by them as I could.—But perhaps you will go with me to my father's—that is, for a night, for to-morrow we expect my uncle Menelaus and all his folk; but, as I said, for one night——”
The cold-blooded limitation of the offered shelter to one night only, and that tendered most unwillingly, offended the pride of the discarded favourite.