Having cleared himself he found himself willing to aid in extricating Montjoy. Give him the prick of being aided! “The sun is strong to-day, and my lord Montjoy hath been long in saddle and is weary and half-sick! So for one instant, good friends, the devil had his ear! It is naught--he will shake the fiend off. Hurt him not by mistrusting him! Presently will you see him on pilgrimage himself to Saint Leofric’s!” Montjoy, dry-voiced, tried to speak. He was dark red, his voice broke in his throat. Suddenly, sharply turning Black King, he touched him with his heel and rode from the market place. “See you, he is really a sick man!” cried Somerville and pushed his bay after him. Sir Humphrey followed, and Montjoy’s two serving men. Middle Forest knew the lord of the castle for an encreasingly devout man. It could not even now see him as scoffer. Sir Robert Somerville, now, was much more like a scoffer than was Montjoy! For a moment folk hung in the wind, then the larger number agreed to give Montjoy the benefit of the doubt. Probably to-morrow he would come praising Saint Leofric! Envious Satan did attack each one in turn! The buzz and hum continued, but it left the key of anger. The Black Friar, having vindicated the right, climbed triumphantly the stair to the upper street. On castle road where the Wander road diverged Montjoy abruptly said good night. His voice was moved, sonorous, thrilling with hurt pride. He seemed eager to leave them, to mount to his old castle that was not so large, not so threatening, after all! When he was gone Somerville laughed, and Sir Humphrey complaisantly with him. They trotted on upon the Wander road, a great manor house and supper before them, three miles up the vale. “When all’s spoken,” said Somerville, “I have a back-handed liking for that lord that’s just left us! I like him enough inwardly to quarrel with him, and frustrate him, and make sure that he thinks not too well of himself! I preoccupy myself with him. The day is stale when I run not somehow against him! What miracle he decrys, will I cry up; or what he cries up, will I decry!” He began to whistle, sweet and clear as a blackbird. “Lyken I wander My love for to see-- My love for to see On a May morning, Where she goes dressed In cramoisie--” CHAPTER V Not on a May but on a June morning--five days in fact after his supper at the house of Morgen Fay--Master Thomas Bettany found himself some miles up the Wander, and with him, riding the gray mare, a bale of sample cloths strapped to saddle, John Cobb the apprentice, with whom, when he did not think to be stiff, he was upon the best of terms. He was up the Wander upon business for his father, that rich merchant who would one day leave him house and gear and trade. Then would he himself, Thomas Bettany, be Middle Forest merchant,--who wanted only to sail for the New World that one Columbus had recently discovered!