“Urge me not with violence, Sir Knight,” said the Jester, keeping at a distance from the impatient champion, “or Folly will show a clean pair of heels, and leave Valour to find out his way through the wood as best he may.”
“Nay, thou hast hit me there,” said the Knight; “and, sooth to say, I have little time to jangle with thee. Keep the horn an thou wilt, but let us proceed on our journey.”
“You will not harm me, then?” said Wamba.
“I tell thee no, thou knave!”
“Ay, but pledge me your knightly word for it,” continued Wamba, as he approached with great caution.
“My knightly word I pledge; only come on with thy foolish self.”
“Nay, then, Valour and Folly are once more boon companions,” said the Jester, coming up frankly to the Knight’s side; “but, in truth, I love not such buffets as that you bestowed on the burly Friar, when his holiness rolled on the green like a king of the ninepins. And now that Folly wears the horn, let Valour rouse himself, and shake his mane; for, if I mistake not, there are company in yonder brake that are on the lookout for us.”
“What makes thee judge so?” said the Knight.
“Because I have twice or thrice noticed the glance of a motion from amongst the green leaves. Had they been honest men, they had kept the path. But yonder thicket is a choice chapel for the Clerks of Saint Nicholas.”
“By my faith,” said the Knight, closing his visor, “I think thou be’st in the right on’t.”