hou a prince in hiding, boy? 'T would buy me, horses, wains, and
all. Why, man alive, 'tis but a nip o' this!"

"Good, then," said Nick, "'tis done--we'll go. Come, Cicely, we're
going home!"

Staring, the carrier followed him, weighing the chain in his hairy hand.
"Who art thou, boy?" he cried again. "This matter hath a queer look."

"'Twas honestly come by, sir," cried Nick, no longer able to conceal a
quiver in his voice, "and my name is Nicholas Attwood; I come from
Stratford town."

"Stratford-on-Avon? Why, art kin to Tanner Simon Attwood there, Attwood
of Old Town?"

"He is my father, sir. Oh, leave us go with thee--take the whole
chain!"

Slap went the carrier's cap in the dirt! "Leave thee go wi' me?
Gadzooks!" he cried, "my name be John Saddler--why, what? my daddy
liveth in Chapel lane, behind Will Underhill's. I stole thy father's
apples fifteen years. What! go wi' me? Get on the wain, thou little
fool--get on all the wains I own, and a plague upon thine eightpence,
lad! Why, here; Hal telled me thou wert dead, or lost, or some such
fairy tale! Up on the sheepskin, both o' ye!"

The Dutchman came from the tap-room door and spoke to the tapster's
knave; but the words which he spoke to that tapster's knave were
anything but Dutch.

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,
Hill