Paul was not a little surprised to hear that his childish exploit had been heard of here, and that the robber chief he had outwitted was the real leader of the band some members of which he had slain the previous day.  He could not disguise from himself that he might on this account be placed in a position of some danger.  The man whose villainous scheme he had frustrated would undoubtedly be his deadly enemy, and it was possible that if his name became known in the place, it would draw upon him the vengeance of the whole band.  True, the robber chieftain might have forgotten the name of the child who had been carried off by him in mistake for the Prince of Wales; but Paul remembered how he had called it out when appealing to his friend the farmer for help, and it was possible that it might be remembered against him.  Certainly, in his present crippled state, it seemed advisable to remain in hiding at the farm, as he was so hospitably pressed to do; and after a short debate with himself upon his position, he gratefully consented to do so.

“That is right, that is right,” cried the farmer, when he came in at midday for the dinner that family and servants all shared together; and presently, when the meal was over, and the women had retired to wash up the platters in an adjoining room, whilst the labourers had started forth for their labours, the master drew his guest into the warm inglenook again, and said to him in a low voice: 

“I’ll be right glad to have a good Lancastrian abiding beneath my roof for awhile.  The good brothers of Leighs are our best customers, and one or another of them is always coming across on some errand, and ’twill do us no harm in their eyes to find a follower of King Henry under our roof.  I know not how it is, but of late they have been somewhat changed toward us;” and the farmer looked uneasily round, as if hardly knowing who might be listening.  “We go to mass as regular as any; and my little girl there has worked a robe for the reverend prior himself as cost me a pretty penny in materials, and half blinded her pretty eyes, she sat at it so close.  They have no need to look askance at us; but there, there, I suppose they have had a deal of trouble with the heretic books and such like as have been getting about the country of late.  They say they found a Wycliffe’s Bible hidden under the hearth stone of a poor woman’s cottage in Little Waltham, nigh at hand here; and if King Henry had been on the throne, she might have been sent up to Smithfield to be burned, as an example and warning to others.  But King Edward was on the throne then, and he cares not to burn his subjects for heresy—­God bless him for that!  But if King Henry is coming back to reign, it behoves all good persons to be careful and walk warily.  So, young sir, if you can speak a good word for us to the holy brothers, I will thank you with all my heart.  It’s a bad thing when they get the notion that a house is corrupted by heresy.”