CHAPTER XXXVI

WAYFARING HOME

At Kensington watering-place, five miles from London town, Nick held the pail for the horses of the Oxford man.  “Hello, my buck!” quoth he, and stared at Nick; “where under the sun didst pop from all at once?” and, looking up, spied Cicely upon the carrier’s wain.  “What, John!” he shouted, “thou saidst there were no more!”

“No more there weren’t, sir,” said John, “but there be now”; and out with the whole story.

“Well, I ha’ farmed for fifty year,” cried honest Roger Clout, “yet never have I seen the mate to yonder little maid, nor heard the like o’ such a tale!  Wife, wife!” he cried, in a voice as round and full of hearty cheer as one who calls his own cattle home across his own fat fields.  “Come hither, Moll—­here’s company for thee.  For sure, John, they’ll ride wi’ Moll and I; ’tis godsend—­angels on a baggage-cart!  Moll ha’ lost her only one, and the little maid will warm the cockles o’ her heart, say nought about mine own.  La, now, she is na feared o’ me; God bless thee, child!  Look at her, Moll—­as sweet as honey and the cream o’ the brindle cow.”

So they rode with kindly Roger Clout and his good wife by Hanwell, Hillingdon Hill, and Uxbridge, where they rested at the inn near old St. Margaret’s, Cicely with Mistress Clout, and Nick with her good man.  And in the morning there was nothing to pay, for Roger Clout had footed all the score.

Then on again, through Beaconsfield and High Wycombe, into and over the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire.  In parts the land was passing fair, with sheep in flocks upon the hills, and cattle knee-deep in the grass; but otherwhere the way was wild, with bogs and moss in all the deeps, and dense beech forests on the heights; and more than once the guards made ready their match-locks warily.  But stout John Saddler’s train was no soft cakes for thieves, and they came up through Bucks scot-free.

At times it drizzled fitfully, and the road was rough and bad; but the third day was a fair, sweet day, and most exceeding bright and fresh.  The shepherds whistled on the hills, and the milkmaids sang in the winding lanes among the white-thorn hedges, the smell of which was everywhere.  The singing, the merry voices calling, the comfortable lowing of the kine, the bleating of the sheep, the clinking of the bridle-chains, and the heavy ruttle of the carts filled the air with life and cheer.  The wind was blowing both warm and cool; and, oh, the blithe breeze of the English springtime!  Nick went up the green hills, and down the white dells like a leaf in the wind, now ahead and now behind the winding train, or off into the woods and over the fields for a posy-bunch for Cicely, calling and laughing back at her, and filling her lap with flowers and ferns until the cart was all one great, sweet-smelling bower.