He seemed an ill-conditioned fellow, but the businesslike way in which we went about our work, watering, feeding, and littering down in old campaigners' fashion, drew from him a grunt of commendation. "Have you come from far, masters?" he asked. "No, from London," I answered curtly. "We come as linen-drapers from Westcheap, if you want to know." "Ay, I see that," he said chuckling. "Never were atop of a horse before nor handled anything but a clothyard; oh, no!" "We want a merchant reputed to sell French lace," I continued, looking hard at him. "Do you happen to know if there is a dealer here with any?" He nodded rather to himself than to me, as if he had expected the question. Then in the same tone, but with a quick glance of intelligence, he answered, "I will show you into the house presently, and you can see for yourselves. A stable is no place for French lace." He pointed with a wink over his shoulder toward a stall in which a man, apparently drunk, lay snoring. "That is a fine toy!" he ran on carelessly, as I removed my dagger from the holster and concealed it under my cloak--"a fine plaything--for a linen draper!" "Peace, peace, man! and show us in," said Master Bertie impatiently. With a shrug of his shoulders the man obeyed. Crossing the courtyard behind him, we entered the great kitchen, which, full of light and warmth and noise, presented just such a scene of comfort and bustle, of loud talking, red-faced guests, and hurrying bare-armed serving-maids, as I remembered lighting upon at St. Albans three years back. But I had changed much since then, and seen much. The bailiff himself would hardly have recognized his old antagonist in the tall, heavily cloaked stranger, whose assured air, acquired amid wild surroundings in a foreign land, gave him a look of age to which I could not fairly lay claim. Master Bertie had assigned the lead to me as being in less danger of recognition, and I followed the ostler toward the hearth without hesitation. "Master Jenkin!" the man cried, with the same rough bluntness he had shown without, "here are two travelers want the lace-seller who was here to-day. Has he gone?" "Who gone?" retorted the host as loudly. "The lace merchant who came this morning." "No; he is in No. 32," returned the landlord. "Will you sup first, gentlemen?" We declined, and followed the ostler, who made no secret of our destination, telling those in our road to make way, as the gentlemen were for No. 32. One of the crowd, however, who seemed to be crossing from the lower end of the room, failed apparently to understand, and, interposing between us and our guide, brought me perforce to a halt. "By your leave, good woman!" I said, and turned to pass round her.