Although it would have been far more agreeable to Cuthbert to have proceeded alone, yet the appearance of the stranger was so prepossessing, and his manners were so frank and courteous, that it was not possible to shake off his company without rudeness. Moreover, his speech had already shown him to be a man of gentle breeding, and that Cambridge had once reckoned him among her students,--so they rode forward together. At the entrance of the town, hard by one of the first houses in the street, sat a cobbler working and singing in his hutch. The companion of Cuthbert here pulled his bridle; and, turning his beast’s nose almost into it, called out, in a loud jolly tone, “Ho, Crispin! canst tell me the way to the church?” “No,” said the cobbler, throwing up an indifferent glance, and then stooping again over his last. “Art deaf, or hast lost thy wits, old surly?” said the traveller: “you know what a church is, don’t you?” “I know what it is not,” replied the old cobbler bluntly, without looking off his work. “What is it not, sirrah?” “It is not a great stone building standing alone in the middle of a town,” said the cobbler raising his head, and looking his interrogator full in the face. “Thou hast more wit than good humour, knave,” said our Cavalier. “And thou words than good breeding,” retorted the sturdy artisan. “I see the stocks of this place are little used, or you should try how they fitted. You have not much fear, methinks, of the wooden collar. Didst ever see a pillory?” “I have, and a godly man in it; and I shall not soon forget the sight. Are you answered, my court bird?” “You are a prick-eared knave; and, if I were not tired and hungry, you should smart for your saucy answers.” By this time a neighbour or two stood forth from the adjoining houses; and the horseman, turning to the nearest, said, “Prithee, friend, canst thou tell me the way to the Boar’s Head, which is next to the church, as I think?” “It is so, true enough,” answered the man, “and well placed, to my thought; for thou wilt be sure to find the parson on the bench of it, or it may be in the skittle yard wrangling with cheating Bob, and staggering at his own cast:--ride straight on--you can’t miss it.” “A pretty nest of godly rogues I have got into,” said the traveller: “there will be an iron gag for your foul mouths soon.” With this he struck spurs into his steed: the beast broke into a smart canter,--that of Cuthbert started in like manner; and they were instantly carried beyond the jeers and the loud laughter of the humorous old cobbler and his neighbours. Of this little scene Cuthbert had been the silent spectator; indeed the dialogue was so short, and so rapidly spoken, that there was no room for any question or remark of his;--and his companion having observed a silver crest upon the holsters of Cuthbert, did not doubt that he was a church and king man,--especially as there had not dropped from him a single expression which savoured of the Puritan.