Part 17 (1/2)
”True. I was minded to go the other day,” said Jacques, ”for things have happened on this side of the river too. My horse was stolen in the night.”
”Stolen!”
”Ay; saddle and all; and next day, toward evening, came trotting home again. What he'd done with the thief I know not.”
”I'm glad he came back,” said the dwarf thoughtfully.
”He'd been ridden hard, I could tell that,” said the farmer.
”And not by a thief, perhaps,” said Jean. ”The young Duke, they say, is dead, Farmer Jacques.”
”What, the Pa.s.sey scholar?”
”So they say yonder.” And the dwarf nodded his head in the direction of the city. ”It is said that some tried to rescue him and failed; and there are some who would arrest these men if they could. That's news for you, farmer.”
”Bad news, Jean.”
”It's good news to hear you call it so,” said the dwarf, leaning toward his companion. ”One of these rescuers was a priest, who will perchance come again to Vayenne. He might pa.s.s this way. If he does, Farmer Jacques, stop him, and say: 'All priests entering Vayenne are to be arrested.'”
”I'll do it. I don't hold with hangings over the castle gates. Would they hang a priest, think you?”
”This one they would; and for that matter all priests have necks as other men have,” the dwarf returned.
”That's ribald talk,” said Jacques, who was a religious man and had no liking for jests concerning priests.
”Crooked as my limbs, but a fact for all that, just as they are. I meant no jest. I've said what I came to say, and I'll get back. They watch the gate carefully to-night, and were I too late they might question me.”
Jean's friends.h.i.+p with the farmer was not one of full confidence.
Jacques knew nothing of the flat-bottomed boat and the dwarf's private entrance into Vayenne. So Jean started briskly along the road, and not until he was well out of sight did he turn aside and make his way back to his hidden landing-place. There he waited until near the dawn, listening for footsteps, or the beating hoofs of a horse, in the silence of the night.
They came some hours afterward, but Jean had recrossed the river then.
Herrick drew up in the shelter of the trees by the landing-place, and looked across the river toward the city. He was bare-headed, and no longer wore the priest's robe. He had thrown that aside before he emerged from the forest. It would mark him to those he had fought with there, some of whom had doubtless returned to Vayenne. How was he to enter the city? The sound of a heavy wagon crunching its way slowly along the road gave him inspiration. Dismounting quickly, he led his horse round to the back of the shed Jean had plundered the other night. There was no one about, and he fastened the bridle to a staple in the woodwork.
”You're as good an animal as the one we stole, so that debt is paid,”
he said; and then he hastened after the wagon going in the direction of Vayenne.
CHAPTER XI
THE LAW OF THE LAND
The driver pulled up his horses when Herrick hailed him.
”Are you going into the city?”
”Ay.”