The herbalist had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the villain of the story was Endymion Leer. Yes, but how should he make the dead tell their tale loud enough to reach the ear of the Law? In any case, he must leave Lud, and that quickly. Why should he not visit the scene of this old drama, the widow Gibberty's farm? Perhaps he might there find witnesses who spoke a language understood by all. * * * * * The next morning he ordered a horse to be saddled, packed a few necessaries in a knapsack, and then he told Dame Marigold that, for the present, he could not stay in Lud. "As for you," he said, "you had better move to Polydore's. For the moment I'm the most unpopular man in town, and it would be just as well that they should think of you as Vigil's sister rather than as Chanticleer's wife." Dame Marigold's face was very pale that morning and her eyes were very bright. "Nothing would induce me," she said in a low voice, "ever again to cross the threshold of Polydore's house. I shall never forgive him for the way he has treated you. No, I shall stay here--in your house. And," she added, with a little scornful laugh, "you needn't be anxious about me. I've never yet met a member of the lower classes that was a match for one of ourselves--they fall to heel as readily as a dog. I'm not a bit afraid of the mob, or anything they could do to me." Master Nathaniel chuckled. "By the Sun, Moon and Stars!" he cried proudly, "you're a chip off the old block, Marigold!" "Well, don't stay too long away, Nat," she said, "or else when you come back you'll find that I've gone mad like everybody else, and am dancing as wildly as Mother Tibbs, and singing songs about Duke Aubrey!" and she smiled her charming crooked smile. Then he went up to say good-bye to old Hempie. "Well, Hempie," he cried gaily. "Lud's getting too hot for me. So I'm off with a knapsack on my back to seek my fortune, like the youngest son in your old stories. Will you wish me luck?" There were tears in the old woman's eyes as she looked at him, and then she smiled. "Why, Master Nat," she cried, "I don't believe you've felt so light-hearted since you were a boy! But these are strange times when a Chanticleer is chased out of Lud-in-the-Mist! And wouldn't I just like to give those Vigils and the rest of them a bit of my mind!" and her old eyes flashed. "But don't you ever get downhearted, Master Nat, and don't ever forget that there have always been Chanticleers in Lud-in-the-Mist, and that there always will be! But it beats me how you're to manage with only three pairs of stockings, and no one to mend them." "Well, Hempie," he laughed, "they say the Fairies are wonderfully neat-fingered, and, who knows, perhaps in my wanderings I may fall in with a fairy housewife who will darn my stockings for me," and he brought out the forbidden word as lightly and easily as if it had been one in daily use.