The King's Daughters

“Give you good den, Master Clere!” said a rosy-faced countrywoman with a basket on her arm, as she came into one of the largest clothier’s shops in Colchester. It was an odd way of saying “Good Evening,” but this was the way in which they said it in 1556. The rosy-faced woman set down her basket on the counter, and looked round the shop in the leisurely way of somebody who was in no particular hurry. They did not dash and rush and scurry through their lives in those days, as we do in these. She was looking to see if any acquaintance of hers was there. As she found nobody she went to business. “Could you let a body see a piece of kersey, think you? I’d fain have a brown or a good dark murrey ’d serve me—somewhat that should not show dirt, and may be trusted to wear well.—Good den, Mistress Clere!—Have you e’er a piece o’ kersey like that?”
Master Nicholas Clere, who stood behind the counter, did not move a finger. He was a tall, big man, and he rested both hands on his counter, and looked his customer in the face. He was not a man whom people liked much, for he was rather queer-tempered, and as Mistress Clere was wont to remark, “a bit easier put out than in.” A man of few words, but those were often pungent, was Nicholas Clere.
“What price?” said he.
“Well! you mustn’t ask me five shillings a yard,” said the rosy-faced woman, with a little laugh. That was the price of the very best and finest kersey.
“Shouldn’t think o’ doing,” answered the clothier.
“Come, you know the sort as ’ill serve me. Shilling a yard at best. If you’ve any at eightpence—”
“Haven’t.”
“Well, then I reckon I must go a bit higher.”
“We’ve as good a kersey at elevenpence,” broke in Mrs Clere, “as you’d wish to see, Alice Mount, of a summer day. A good brown, belike, and not one as ’ll fade—and a fine thread—for the price, you know. You don’t look for kersey at elevenpence to be even with that at half-a-crown, now, do you? but you’ll never repent buying this, I promise you.”