'What should it signify, mother,'' said Richard, 'so long as neither
you nor I believe a word of it? Horses go up a tower to bed
forsooth! Yet for the matter of that, I will engage to ride my mare
up any corkscrew wide enough to turn her forelock and tail in--ay,
and down again too, which is another business with most horses. But
come now, mother Rees, confess this all a fable of thine own
contriving to make a mock of a farm-bred lad like me.'
'In good sooth, master Heywood,' answered the old woman, 'I tell the
tale as 'twas told to me. I avouch it not for certain, knowing that
my son Thomas hath a seething brain and loveth a joke passing well,
nor heedeth greatly upon whom he putteth it, whether his master or
his mother; but for the stair by the great hall window, that stair
have I seen with mine own eyes, though for the horses to come and go
thereby, that truly have I not seen. And for the rest I only say it
may well be, for there is nothing of it all which the wise man, my
lord Herbert, could not with a word--and that a light one for him to
speak, though truly another might be torn to pieces in saying it.
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