"Why does it become more crowded when two paths open before us? Why does it
not happen that some of these cattle turn down the old way?"
The man shook his head. "I do not think there is much likelihood of that,
lady; since the Bridge was built, no one has wanted to use the ford; and there
is little else to take that way for, unless you are going to service in the
West Minster or to the Monastery."
"Wanted!" the Lady of Northampton repeated in the extremity of scorn. "Bid
them turn into that road at once. They stand some chance of their faces
getting clean if they take the ford,--if they also get drowned matters very
little. Tell them, seek what they may seek, to take that way instantly, or the
King shall punish them for interfering with their betters."
The man pushed up his leather cap to scratch his head. He was not unacquainted
with her custom of sweeping the Northamptonshire serfs off any road she wished
to possess, but that struck him as being somewhat easier than dispersing a
Coronation mob at the gates of London; and yet to defy her--that was harder
than either of them! It was an interposition of his good angel that at this
moment provided a diversion.
Randalin broke from her silence with an exclamation: "Thorkel! Yonder!"
Less than fifty paces ahead of them, the grizzled head of the King's foster-
father rose steeple-like above the crowd, while the mighty shoulders of the
King's foster-brother made a bulwark beside it, and the gilded helms of the
King's guard formed a palisade around them.
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