The Herd Boy and His Hermit | Page 8

of the convent, but go with you I will.'
He spoke with a decided tone of authority, and Hob Hogward muttered
a little to himself, but yielded.
Hal assisted the young lady to mount, and they set off along the track
of the moss, driving the cows, sheep, and goats before them-- not a
very considerable number--till they came to another hut, much smaller
and more rude than that where they had left Mother Doll.
Piers was a wild, shaggy-haired lad, with a sheepskin over his
shoulders, and legs bare below the knee, and to him the charge of the
flock was committed, with signs which he evidently understood and
replied to with a gruff 'Ay, ay!' The three went on the way, over the
slope of a hill, partly clothed with heather, holly and birch trees, as it
rose above the moss. Hob led the pony, and there was something in his
grim air and manner that hindered any conversation between the two
young people. Only Hal from time to time gathered a flower for the
young lady, scabious and globe flowers, and once a very pink wild rose,
mingled with white ones. Lady Anne took them with a meaning smile,

and a merry gesture, as though she were going to brush Hal's face with
the petals. Hal laughed, and said, 'You will make them shed.'
'Well and good, so the disputes be shed,' said Anne, with more meaning
than perhaps Hal understood. 'And the white overcomes the red.'
'May be the red will have its way with spring--'
But there Hob looked round on them, and growled out, 'Have done with
that folly! What has a herd boy like thee to do with roses and frippery?
Come away from the lady's rein. Thou art over-held to thrust thyself
upon her.'
Nevertheless, as Hal fell back, the dark eyes shot a meaning glance at
him, and the party went on in silence, except that now and then Hob
launched at Hal an order that he endeavoured to render savagely
contemptuous and harsh, so that Lady Anne interfered to say, 'Nay, the
poor lad is doing no harm.'
'Scathe enough,' answered Hob. 'He always will be doing ill if he can.
Heed him not, lady, it only makes him the more malapert.'
'Malapert,' repeated Anne, not able to resist a little teasing of the grim
escort; 'that's scarce a word of the dales. 'Tis more like a man-at-arms.'
This Hob would not hear, and if he did, it produced a rough
imprecation on the pony, and a sharp cut with his switch.
They had crossed another burn, travelled through the moss, and
mounted to the brow of another hill, when, far away against the sky, on
the top of yet another height, were to be seen moving figures, not cattle,
but Anne recognised them at once. 'Men-at-arms! archers! lances! A
search party for me! The Prioress must have sent to the Warden's
tower.'
'Off with thee, lad!' said Hob, at once turning round upon Hal. 'I'll not
have thee lingering to gape at the men-at-arms! Off I say, or--'
He raised his stout staff as though to beat the boy, who looked up in his
face with a laugh, as if in very little alarm at his threat, smiled up in the
young lady's face, and as she held out her hand with 'Farewell, Hal; I'll
keep your rose-leaves in my breviary,' he bent over and kissed the
fingers.
'How now! This impudence passes! As if thou wert of the same blood
as the damsel!' exclaimed Hob in considerable anger, bringing down
his stick. 'Away with thee, ill-bred lubber! Back to thy sheep, thou lazy
loiterer! Get thee gone and thy whelp with thee!'

Hal obeyed, though not without a parting grin at Anne, and had sped
away down the side of the hill, among the hollies and birches, which
entirely concealed him and the bounding puppy.
Hob went on in a gruff tone: 'The insolence of these loutish lads! See
you, lady, he is a stripling that I took up off the roadside out of mere
charity, and for the love of Heaven--a mere foundling as you may say,
and this is the way he presumes!'
'A foundling, sayest thou?' said Anne, unable to resist teasing him a
little, and trying to gratify her own curiosity.
'Ay, you may say so! There's a whole sort of these orphans, after all the
bad luck to the land, to be picked up on every wayside.'
'On Towton Moor, mayhap,' said Anne demurely, as she saw her surly
guide start. But he was equal to the occasion, and answered:
'Ay, ay, Towton Moor; 'twas shame to see such bloody work; and there
were motherless and fatherless children, stray lambs, to be met with,
weeping