“Jack, I be powerful dirty!”
This was true enough, and it made me laugh. She looked up solemnly at my mirth (having no sense of a joke, then or ever) and bent forward to the glass again.
“By the way,” said I, “did you mark a carriage just outside the crowd, by the Cheap Jack’s booth?—with a white-hair’d gentleman seated inside?”
Joan nodded. “Master Hannibal Tingcomb: steward o’ Gleys.”
“What!”
I jumped in my saddle, and with a pull at the bridle brought Molly to a standstill.
“Of Gleys?” I cried. “Steward of Sir Deakin Killigrew that was?”
“Right, lad, except the last word. ‘That is,’ should’st rather say.”
“Then you are wrong, Joan: for he’s dead and buried, these five months. Where is this house of Gleys? for to-morrow I must ride there.”
“’Tis easy found, then: for it stands on the south coast yonder, and no house near it: five mile from anywhere, and sixteen from Temple, due south. Shall want thee afore thou startest, Jack. Dear, now! who’d ha’ thought I was so dirty?”