"I paid my respects to Commandant Short at the Prison. He is a gentleman, but I think the business of that place will tax his authority. A saint would grow impatient with the knaves."
"And your visitor?" inquired Mr. Norcot. "'Twas a wonderful Providence that sent him here."
"The rascal! And yet Stark was one worthy of respect, had he been properly educated. He listened to me, as a young man should listen to his elders and betters. I could have found it in my heart to like him, but for his soaring nonsense and his disinclination to call treachery and revolt by their true names. Doubtless his ideas are the common property of his country. He suffered but a week's detention in the cachot and is now with his friends again."
Peter Norcot from under amber eyelashes studied Grace and found further material for interest.
"Another!" he said to himself. "An inflammable wench truly! Quick to catch fire from every torch but mine. Well, well—may war last until we are wedded. I ask no more."
"There's further news of a parochial sort," continued Malherb. "What think you, Grace? The old hag on the hill is off! She's left Siward's Cross and gone to a hovel near the Prison, where a few acres of land were to be let. She represented to the High Bailiff, the Duchy's man, that I'd robbed her of her best cattle lairs when I raised my boundaries! The old liar has money too—ay, and more than money."
"A wonderful creature. I mind her eyes that sparkled with gorgonian fire; her starved abode, and her penury. It called to my recollection Lucilius—his miser and his mouse:—
"'"You greedy rogue, what brings you to my house?"
Quoth an old miser to a little mouse;
"Friend," says the vermin, "you need have no fear,
I only lodge with you; I dine elsewhere."'
Ha-ha-ha! She feeds on snails and berries. Such was Sycorax."
"She's worth above twenty thousand pounds, nevertheless," declared Malherb.