"No!"
"And wherefore not?"
"Because," says I, cutting myself more beef, "I happened to be that same rogue." Here Roger the landlord stared, his buxom wife shrank away, and even the talkative peddler grew silent awhile, viewing me with his shrewd, merry eyes.
"Aha!" says he at last, "'Twas you, was it?"
"It was!"
"And why must ye 'sault a noble lady?"
"I never did!"
"Gregory swears to it."
"Gregory's a liar!"
"Which is true enough--so he be!" nodded the landlord.
"And a cruel-hard man!" added his wife. "But Lord, young master, they do ha' used ye ill--your poor face, all bruised and swole it be!"
"Which it be!" nodded Roger. "Likewise cut! Which be ill for 'ee though--like Godby here--I won't say but what I moughtn't ha' took a heave at ye, had I been there, it being nat'ral-like to heave things at such times, d'ye see?"
"Very natural!" says I.
"And then why," questioned the little peddler, "why break open the wicket-gate?"
"To get in!"
"Aha!" quoth Godby the peddler, winking roguish eye, "On the prigging lay perchance, cull, or peradventure the mill-ken? Speak plain, pal, all's bowmon!"
"I'm no flash cull," says I, "neither buzz, file, mill-ken nor scamperer."
"Mum, pal, mum! I'm no more flash than you be, though I've no love for the harmon-becks as Roger here will tell 'ee. A peddler be I and well liked--wish I may swing else! Aye, well beloved is kind Godby, specially by wenches and childer--aha, many's the yard o' riband and lace, the garters, pins, ballads, gingerbread men, pigs and elephants, very fair gilt, as they've had o' kind Godby, and all for love! And yet, plague and perish it--here's me warned off my pitch, here's me wi' the damned catchpolls on my heels, and all along o' this same Gregory Bragg--rot him!"
"As to all that, I know not," says I, "but this I'll swear to, you are a man, Godby the peddler, and one with a bold and kindly heart inside you."
"How so?" he questioned, his bright eyes all of a twinkle. "How so, my bully boy?"
"That pannikin of water."
"Which you didn't get, my cock's-body lad!"
"Which you were man enough to bring me."
"Which Tom Button did ye out of!"
"Which you knocked him down for!"
"Which is Gospel-true, Roger and Cicely, 'twas a neat throw. Tom bumped heavy--aye, uncommon flat were Tom, let me eat worms else!"
"For all of the which," says I, cutting more beef, "I ask you now to drink a stoup of ale with me."
"Wi' all my heart!" cries the peddler.
"Then," says I, laying my money on the table, "let us all drink in fellowship, for ale, like fellowship, is a goodly thing and good things be rare in this world!"