Go with Hugh de
Cressi on the business which I have given him to do, and, when it is
finished, should both or either of you live, neglect not our command
to rejoin us here, or--if we have crossed the sea--in France. Edward of
England needs the service of such a sword and such a bow."
"You shall have them both, Sire," broke in Hugh, "for what they are
worth. Moreover, I pray your Grace be not angry with Grey Dick's words,
for if God gave him a quick eye, He also gave him a rough tongue."
"Not I, Hugh de Cressi, for know, we love what is rough if it be also
honest. It is smooth, false words of treachery that we hate, such words
as are ever on the lips of one whom we send you forth to bring to his
account. Now to your duty. Farewell till we meet again, whether it be
here or where all men, true or traitors, must foot their bill at last."
CHAPTER VI
THE SNARE
About noon of the day on which Hugh and his company had ridden for
London, another company entered Dunwich--namely, Sir John Clavering and
many of his folk, though with him were neither Sir Edmund Acour nor any
of his French train. Sir John's temper had never been of the best, for
he was a man who, whatever his prosperity, found life hard and made it
harder for all those about him. But seldom had he been angrier than he
was this day, when his rage was mingled with real sorrow for the loss of
his only son, slain in a fight brought about by the daughter of one of
them and the sister of the other and urged for honour's sake by himself,
the father of them both.
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