Free King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry

into the deep-set blue eyes of Mister Coke. His own eyes blurred.
    “It is about my son-in-law, lad,” Mister Coke went on. “He is confined to his bed from the morning’s experience. He is very sore on the matter. It is his wish that the horse be sent away at once. And Hannah, who is my only daughter, pleads his cause.”
    Agba noticed, with a chill of fear, that all this while he had been tracing the wheat ear on Sham’s chest.
    Seeing the fright on the boy’s face, Mister Coke put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Come, come, lad. I am merely selling thy horse to the good Roger Williams, keeper of the RedLion Inn. He loans out horses to merchant travelers whose mounts are travel-weary. Then, when the merchants are next in the vicinity, they return the mounts. Have no fear, lad, Roger Williams will use thy horse well. And I have the man’s word that thou and thy cat, too, will find a good home above the stable. He will come for thee and thy creatures early tomorrow morning.”
    “Now,” said Mister Coke as he adjusted his square-rimmed spectacles, “let us read a verse or two from the Bible. It will help to cheer our hearts. Then I will leave thee without any words of farewell.”
    Standing so the light would fall over his shoulder, Mister Coke let the Bible open where it would. And suddenly the years seemed to wash away and his face was wreathed in smiles.
    “ ‘The horse,’ ” he read, with gusto, “ ‘rejoiceth in his strength. . . . He paweth in the valley. . . . He is not affrighted. . . . He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, Ha!’ ”
    A look that was close to a wink ventured across Jethro Coke’s face as he closed the book. Then he turned, and sprightly as a boy, leaped across the mud puddle where Benjamin Biggle had fallen.
    Agba thought he heard a chuckle and then words coming back to him out of the mist: “The horse saith among the trumpets, Ha, Ha!”



15 . At the Sign of the Red Lion
    A GBA COULD have been happy at the Red Lion if there had been only Mister Williams, the keeper of the inn, to consider. He was a mild-mannered man, with red, bushy eyebrows that traveled up and down when he spoke. And when he smiled, as he did often, they completely hid his eyes and gave him a sheep-dog look. Mister Williams was kindness itself.
    It was Mistress Williams who made life hard. She was an enormous woman who went into hysterics every time she saw Agba. “ Mis -ter Williams!” she would shriek at the top of herlungs. “That—that varmint-in-a-hood! Get ’im outa here! ’E gives me the creeps! It’s ’im or me, I tell ye!”
    The truth of the matter was that Agba’s deep, searching eyes, his soft, pattering footsteps, his flowing mantle and quiet ways, were so foreign to her own coarseness that she felt ill at ease in his presence.
    As for Grimalkin, the poor cat could not even cross her path without sending the woman into a fit. When one night she accidentally stepped on his tail, there was such a yowling that she insisted the cat and the boy must go that instant. And so, within less than a forthnight after they had arrived, Agba and Grimalkin were turned away from the inn without so much as an oatcake or a handful of walnuts to take along.
    Mister Williams walked with Agba as far as the road. There he stopped by the lanthorn that hung from the sign of the Red Lion. Even by its feeble glow Agba could see that the man was distressed.
    “Y’ understand, lad,” he said, his eyebrows working up and down with emotion, “y’ understand I got me customers to think about. Mistress Williams knows an awful lot about cookery. Why, travelers come a good long ways just to taste of ’er whortleberry pie. I got to ’umor ’er, boy. You trot along now to Jethro Coke’s house. ’E’ll take ye in, I’ve no doubt of it. As for your ’orse,” he added with assurance, “I paid my good money fer ’im an’ I promises to use ’im