It was to no purpose that the monk requested, and then commanded, that he should be permitted to pursue his journey alone. Stephen insisted upon accompanying him out of Gloucestershire, and father John, to avoid contention, feigned to defer his departure; but when the tables were spread, and the domestics and vassals had sat down to the feast, Margaret, who had been seeking the monk about the castle, looked and looked again among them all, and at length had to weep over the certainty that she should never more behold her brother. Nor did she; for John Ball did not long survive his exile. On the second anniversary of the bondman's freedom, his own spirit was freed, and his body rested in the cemetery of the monastery of Cistercium, in Burgundy.
"Lady," returned Father John, with dignity, "I retire at your bidding, but not through fear of the Baron de Boteler. Let him, if he will, insult and expose an anointed priestbut, woe to him if he does! The blight has already fallen on the blossombeware of the tree!"
ONE:"You've landed him in a good pl?ace," said Pete; "a little farther back and he'd have been gone."
"Fetch him here."Fierce retorts and bitter revilings were on Holgrave's tongue; but the sanctuary of a maiden's home was no place for contention. He knew that Calverley did possess the power he vaunted; and, without uttering a word, he crossed the threshold, and stood on the sod just beyond the door.The stranger instantly divested himself of his wet apparel, and attired himself in Holgrave's yeoman's garb; and then, with the natural regret of one accustomed to traffic, he drew from a secret pocket of his wet doublet, a bag of coin, the wreck of his merchandize, and with a sigh for all he had lost, placed it in his bosom. His dagger was also stuck in his doublet, so that if necessity came, he might use it; and then attentively listening to Holgrave's directions, he threw himself upon a heap of rushes in a corner, and soon after his host had withdrawn to throw the tell-tale garments into the Isborne, he fell into the short, light slumbers of a seaman.The family at Flightshot consisted now of the Squire, who had nothing against him except his obstinacy, his lady, and his son who was just of age and "the most tedious young rascal" Reuben had ever had to deal with. He drove a motor-car with hideous din up and down the Peasmarsh lanes, and once Odiam had had[Pg 433] the pleasure of lending three horses to pull it home from the Forstal. But his worst crimes were in the hunting field; he had no respect for roots or winter grain or hedges or young spinneys. Twice Reuben had written to his father, through Maude the scribe, and he vowed openly that if ever he caught him at it he'd take a stick to him.