He had the inscrutable eyes of a hare. Say what he might, there was always something at odds between them and the picked precision of his speech. He sat propped against a pillow formed of Brion’s cloak; the great horse-cloth was wrapped about his naked limbs; his clothes were spread to dry near the glowing brazier; he had eaten little of the food and drunk feverishly of the wine, and his tongue was loosened.
Brion nodded. ‘Let us have done with compliments. Am I to know your name and business?’
‘I am a simple trader, an Englishman, by name John Melton.’
‘Well, we will return to that. And now, Master Melton, an it please you, what brought a simple trader to such plight?’
‘Sir, I owe you the plain story; and here it is. In the darkness before dawn this morning a hoy, standing off from the coast, was driven ashore at Teignmouth by the fury of the wind and waves. Something, I know not what, aroused in the rough folk who helped to beach her a belief that there were Catholic emissaries from Picardy on board, and in a moment the devil was ablaze in them. For some most unjustifiable reason their suspicions fell on me, of whom their fanatic hatred would have made an instant victim, casting me into a fire of driftwood they prepared to build upon the shore, had I not through God’s grace and the darkness succeeded in escaping from their cruel hands. Battered and wounded, I fled at random, their shouts and imprecations following me as I ran. By dawn I had gained the heights, whence, hiding and observing, I could see the chase, now gathered in volume, still furious on my tracks. Had they once scattered, I had been lost, but they kept together, while I scurried on before, taking advantage of every scrap of cover. Still they pressed on, like hounds intent and inexorable, and to me, hurt and exhausted as I was, there could have come but one end, had I not, through merciful Providence, chanced, when near my last gasp, on a charitable stranger. That is all my tale.’
Brion, regarding the speaker enigmatically, did not respond for a moment.
‘So,’ said he at last, ‘you came in the boat?’
‘That is perfectly true.’
‘And from Picardy—where there are Jesuits?’
‘And traders.’