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Updated: July 15, 2025
Never shall I forget hearing his horse's hoofs come tearing over the road, as if some man was riding for his life. I was abed, and started out of my sleep at the sound of it. 'Who's chased by the devil at this time o' night through Wickben village? says I, and scarce were the words out of my mouth before the horse clatters up to the house and stops.
'Twas but seldom he had chance to tell his story, and 'twas a thing he dearly loved to do, life being but a dull thing at the Cow at Wickben, and few travellers passing that way. A pair so friendly and gay and ready to hearken to his chatter as these two he had not seen for years. "Look there!" he said. "At that big hole in the wall."
"Ay," said he, "I ride to the country in hot haste. I go to Wickben in Essex, to bring back a thing I once left there." "'Twas a queer place to leave valuables," said Tom "a village of tumble-down thatched cottages. Was't a love-token or a purse of gold?" Sir John gave his knee a sudden joyous slap, and laughed aloud.
On such a journey, setting out from London one bright morning, they rode through Essex and stopped by chance at a little village inn. 'Twas the village of Wickben, and on the signboard which hung swinging on a post before the small thatched house of entertainment was painted a brown cow. None knew 'twas a Duke and his Duchess who dismounted and entered the place.
And safe it was, for I'll warrant thou hast not thought of it since, and safe thou'lt find it at the Cow at Wickben still." Sir John struck one closed hand sudden on the palm of the other. "It comes back to thee," cried Sir Christopher, with a grimace aside at his audience. "Ay, it comes back," answers Sir John; "it comes back."
But what he rode for they never heard, neither they nor anyone else who told the story, though 'twas sure that if he went to Wickben he came back to town for a few hours at least, for there were those who saw him the next day, but only one there was who spoke with him, and that one my Lady Dunstanwolde herself.
But a few months after their Graces' visit to the Cow at Wickben, young John, who was heir and Marquess of Roxholm, had been born; following each other his two brothers, and later the child Daphne and her sister Anne; last, the little Lord Cuthbert, who was told as he grew older that he was to be the hero of his house in memory of Cuthbert de Mertoun, who had lived centuries ago; and in the five villages 'twas sworn that each son her Grace bore her husband was a finer creature than the last, and that her girl children outbloomed their brothers all.
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