"
"Well, when I tell you that he is riding from London, while I have come
thence by sea, you may suppose that we thought the matter urgent."
"I will tell Wulf at once, father, but I am sure that he cannot come out
for an hour yet."
"The matter will keep that while. I will go and look for a lodging for us
and get something to eat, for we have walked some seventeen miles, and my
legs are not so accustomed to exercise as my arms. In an hour we will be
here again."
Ulred and his apprentice had returned to the gate of the bishop's palace
but a few minutes when Wulf came out, followed by Osgod. "Your message must
be an important one, indeed, Ulred, to cause you to leave the forge and to
undertake so long a voyage. And you say Beorn is riding hither on the same
errand?"
"He is. It is a sort of race between us, and it seems that we have won."
"Let us step aside from here," Wulf said. "There are too many gathered
about to stare at the guests as they come and go for us to talk unobserved.
The cathedral yard is close by, and there will be no fear of eaves-droppers
there."
"It is Ulf's story," the armourer said when they reached the shadow of the
cathedral. "It is to him that the matter was committed, and though he was
forced to take me into his confidence, the merit of following up the
matter, if merit there be, is his."
Ulf accordingly related the story of his watching, the discovery he had
made by the river, and how Walter Fitz-Urse had been afterwards seen to
embark and had not returned.
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