"Ay, ay, that's just like the rest of them," replied the boy. "I warrant
me, you think, what should such an ill-favoured, scrambling urchin do at
court? But let Richard Sludge alone; I have not been cock of the roost
here for nothing. I will make sharp wit mend foul feature."
"But what will your grandam say, and your tutor, Dominie Holiday?"
"E'en what they like," replied Dickie; "the one has her chickens to
reckon, and the other has his boys to whip. I would have given them the
candle to hold long since, and shown this trumpery hamlet a fair pair of
heels, but that Dominie promises I should go with him to bear share in
the next pageant he is to set forth, and they say there are to be great
revels shortly."
"And whereabouts are they to be held, my little friend?" said
Tressilian.
"Oh, at some castle far in the north," answered his guide--"a world's
breadth from Berkshire. But our old Dominie holds that they cannot go
forward without him; and it may be he is right, for he has put in order
many a fair pageant. He is not half the fool you would take him for,
when he gets to work he understands; and so he can spout verses like
a play-actor, when, God wot, if you set him to steal a goose's egg, he
would be drubbed by the gander."
"And you are to play a part in his next show?" said Tressilian, somewhat
interested by the boy's boldness of conversation and shrewd estimate of
character.
"In faith," said Richard Sludge, in answer, "he hath so promised me; and
if he break his word, it will be the worse for him, for let me take the
bit between my teeth, and turn my head downhill, and I will shake him
off with a fall that may harm his bones. And I should not like much to
hurt him neither," said he, "for the tiresome old fool has painfully
laboured to teach me all he could. But enough of that--here are we at
Wayland Smith's forge-door."
"You jest, my little friend," said Tressilian; "here is nothing but a
bare moor, and that ring of stones, with a great one in the midst, like
a Cornish barrow."
"Ay, and that great flat stone in the midst, which lies across the top
of these uprights," said the boy, "is Wayland Smith's counter, that you
must tell down your money upon."