“Tush!” said Gurth, “I fear discovery from none, saving my playfellow, Wamba the Jester, of whom I could never discover whether he were most knave or fool. Yet I could scarce choose but laugh, when my old master passed so near to me, dreaming all the while that Gurth was keeping his porkers many a mile off, in the thickets and swamps of Rotherwood . If I am discovered⁠—”

“Enough,” said the Disinherited Knight, “thou knowest my promise.”

“Nay, for that matter,” said Gurth, “I will never fail my friend for fear of my skin-cutting. I have a tough hide, that will bear knife or scourge as well as any boar’s hide in my herd.”

“Trust me, I will requite the risk you run for my love, Gurth,” said the Knight. “Meanwhile, I pray you to accept these ten pieces of gold.”

“I am richer,” said Gurth, putting them into his pouch, “than ever was swineherd or bondsman.”

“Take this bag of gold to Ashby ,” continued his master, “and find out Isaac the Jew of York , and let him pay himself for the horse and arms with which his credit supplied me.”

“Nay, by St. Dunstan,” replied Gurth, “that I will not do.”

“How, knave,” replied his master, “wilt thou not obey my commands?”

“So they be honest, reasonable, and Christian commands,” replied Gurth; “but this is none of these. To suffer the Jew to pay himself would be dishonest, for it would be cheating my master; and unreasonable, for it were the part of a fool; and unchristian, since it would be plundering a believer to enrich an infidel.”

“See him contented, however, thou stubborn varlet,” said the Disinherited Knight.