Goodwife Dolly inquired whether they might safely go to church, from which she had been debarred all the time they had been on the move.  ‘So ill for both us and the lad,’ she said.

Simon looked doubtful.  ‘If thou canst not save thy soul without,’ he said, ’thou mightst go on some feast day, when there is such a concourse of folk that thou mightst not be noticed, and come away at once without halting for idle clavers, as they call them here.’

‘That’s what the women folk are keen for with their church-going,’ said Hob with a grin.

‘Now, husband, thou knowst,’ said Dolly, injured, though she was more than aware he spoke with intent to tease her.  ’Have I not lived all this while with none to speak to save thee and the blessed lads, and never murmured.’

‘Though thy tongue be sore for want of speech!’ laughed Hob, ’thou beest a good wife, Dolly, and maybe thy faithfulness will tell as much in the saving of thy soul as going to church.’

‘Nay, but,’ said Hal with eagerness, ‘is there not a priest?’

’The priest comes of a White Rose house—­I trust not him.  Ay, goodwife, beware of showing thyself to him.  I give him my dues, that he may have no occasion against me or Sir Lancelot, but I would not have him pry into knowledge that concerns him not.’

’Did not Sir Lancelot say somewhat of a scholarly hermit who might learn me in what I ought to know?’ asked the boy.

’Never you fear, sir!  Here are Hob Halstead and I, able to train any young noble in what behoves him most to know.’

’Yea, in arms and sports.  They must be learnt I know, but a noble needs booklore too,’ said the boy.  ’Cannot this same hermit help me?  Sir Lancelot—­’

Simon Bunce interrupted sharply.  ’Sir Lancelot knows nought of the hermit!  He is—­he is—­a holy man.’

‘A priest,’ broke in Dolly, ‘a priest!’

’No such thing, dame, no clerk at all, I tell thee.  And ye lads had best not molest him!  He is for ever busy with his prayers, and wants none near him.’

Hal was disappointed, for his mind was far less set on the exercises of a young knight than on the desire to acquire knowledge, that study which seemed to be thrown away on the unwilling ears of Anne St. John.

Hob had been awakened by contact with his lady and her husband, as well as with the old comrade, Simon Bunce, to perceive that if there were any chance of the young Lord Clifford’s recovering his true position he must not be allowed to lounge and slouch about like Piers, and he was continually calling him to order, making him sit and stand upright, as he had seen the young pages forced to do at the castle, learn how to handle a sword, and use the long stick which was the substitute for a lance, and to mount and sit on the old pony as a knight should do, till poor Hal had no peace, and was glad to get away upon the moor with Piers and the sheep, where there was no one to criticise him, or predict that nothing would ever make him do honour to his name if he were proved ten times a baron.