If he might otherwise have had some conscientious scruples concerning the source of this supply of money, he was willing to leave all that to so good a man as the missionary, and to consider the cash as the ordinary spoils of war.
"I couldn't give it back to its old owners, if I wanted to," he thought. "War is war, anyhow, and this invasion is a great piece of piracy from beginning to end. I am a kind of Norse Viking pirate, myself."
Now that he was really inside the walls of the city of York, he considered that he was under a necessity for beginning to seem, if not also to feel, exceedingly English, or rather Danish-Saxon. Thousands of angry fugitives from the Fulford fight and thousands more of fresh arrivals from the interior were likely to be roaming around the streets. Every man of them would have a weapon with him, and was sure to have revengeful feelings toward either a favourite of Tostig or a young Viking.
"The fact is," thought Ned, "I'm a kind of spy, and they shoot spies as soon as they catch them. I won't do them any harm, anyhow."
There was nothing in his dress or appearance to distinguish him, for his helmet and his mail and shield were as like as two peas to such as were worn or carried by the English soldiery.
"All the hotels will be crowded," he said to Father Brian. "I shouldn't wonder if we had to sleep in one of the streets."
"No, we will not," replied his friend. "I have a direction to a hostelry. It is a place of entertainment for man and beast that is attached to one of the churches. It is likely to be quiet and is good enough if a man can get nothing better."
"Any kind of coop will do for me," said Ned. "I'm not half so particular about that as I am about getting under cover. I want to see all there is of this town, too."
"That is thy duty," said the missionary, "and thou wilt see but little of me before Sunday. I have to pay my respects to the bishop, as thou knowest."
Ned, the son of Webb, did not really know anything whatever about the manner in which things were managed in the Northumberland churches, but he was quite willing to do his sightseeing or his business for Tostig by himself. His friend led the way to the hostelry and left him there, and as yet neither of them had been spoken to by anybody.