"Why, yes, if you think so," said Robin. "I do not know him very well."

"Oh! he is safe enough, and he has learned not to talk. Besides, all the
country will know it by Easter."

So they turned their horses back again and rode up to the farm.

* * * * *

It was a great day for a yeoman when three gentlemen should take their
dinners in his house; and the place was in a respectful uproar. From the
kitchen vent went up a pillar of smoke, and through its door, in and out
continually, fled maids with dishes. The yeoman himself, John Merton, a
dried-looking, lean man, stood cap in hand to meet the gentlemen; and
his wife, crimson-faced from the fire, peeped and smiled from the open
door of the living-room that gave immediately upon the yard. For these
gentlemen were from three of the principal estates here about. The
Babingtons had their country house at Dethick and their town house in
Derby; the Audreys owned a matter of fifteen hundred acres at least all
about Matstead; and the FitzHerberts, it was said, scarcely knew
themselves all that they owned, or rather all that had been theirs until
the Queen's Grace had begun to strip them of it little by little on
account of their faith. The two Padleys, at least, were theirs, besides
their principal house at Norbury; and now that Sir Thomas was in the
Fleet Prison for his religion, young Mr. Thomas, his heir, was of more
account than ever.

He was at his dinner when the two came in, and he rose and saluted them.
He was a smallish kind of man, with a little brown beard, and his short