‘The young gentleman to whom this pony belongs,’ continued the gipsy, ’may or may not be a lord.  I never asked him his name, and he never told it me; but he sought hospitality of me and my people, and we gave it him, and he lives with us, of his own free choice.  The pony is of no use to him now, and so I came to sell it for our common good.’

‘A Peer of the realm turned gipsy!’ exclaimed the Squire.  ’A very likely tale!  I’ll teach you to come here and tell your cock-and-bull stories to two of his majesty’s justices of the peace.  ’Tis a flat case of robbery and murder, and I venture to say something else.  You shall go to gaol directly, and the Lord have mercy on your soul!’

‘Nay,’ said the gipsy, appealing to Dr. Marsham; ’you, sir, appear to be a friend of this youth.  You will not regain him by sending me to gaol.  Load me, if you will, with irons; surround me with armed men, but at least give me the opportunity of proving the truth of what I say.  I offer in two hours to produce to you the youth, and you shall find he is living with my people in content and peace.’

‘Content and fiddlestick!’ said the Squire, in a rage.

‘Brother Mountmeadow,’ said the Doctor, in a low tone, to his colleague, ’I have private duties to perform to this family.  Pardon me if, with all deference to your sounder judgment and greater experience, I myself accept the prisoner’s offer.’

’Brother Masham, you are one of his majesty’s justices of the peace, you are a brother magistrate, and you are a Doctor of Divinity; you owe a duty to your country, and you owe a duty to yourself.  Is it wise, is it decorous, that one of the Quorum should go a-gipsying?  Is it possible that you can credit this preposterous tale?  Brother Masham, there will be a rescue, or my name is not Mountmeadow.’

In spite, however, of all these solemn warnings, the good Doctor, who was not altogether unaware of the character of his pupil, and could comprehend that it was very possible the statement of the gipsy might be genuine, continued without very much offending his colleague, who looked upon, his conduct indeed rather with pity than resentment, to accept the offer of Morgana; and consequently, well-secured and guarded, and preceding the Doctor, who rode behind the cart with his servant, the gipsy soon sallied forth from the inn-yard, and requested the driver to guide his course in the direction of the forest.

CHAPTER XVII.

It was the afternoon of the third day after the arrival of Cadurcis at the gipsy encampment, and nothing had yet occurred to make him repent his flight from the abbey, and the choice of life he had made.  He had experienced nothing but kindness and hospitality, while the beautiful Beruna seemed quite content to pass her life in studying his amusement.  The weather, too, had been extremely favourable to his new mode of existence; and stretched at his length upon the rich turf, with his head on Beruna’s lap, and his eyes fixed upon the rich forest foliage glowing in the autumnal sunset, Plantagenet only wondered that he could have endured for so many years the shackles of his common-place home.