“Well, Madge, old woman!” said he to the old housekeeper, who had once been his nurse, “this is strange matter, surely! Is all true that Martha tells me? Be all they gone, and none wist how nor whither?”
“Come in, and sit you down by the fire, Master Anthony,” said Margery, in whose heart was a very soft spot for her sometime nursling, “and I’ll tell you all I know. Here’s the master’s keys, they’ll maybe be safer in your hands than mine; he didn’t leave ’em wi’ me, but I went round the house and picked ’em all up, and locked everything away from them prying maids and that young jackanapes of a Dickon. Some he must ha’ took with him; but he’s left the key of the old press, look you, and that label hanging from it.”
The Justice looked at the label, and saw his own name written in his brother’s writing.
“Ha! maybe he would have me open the press and search for somewhat. Let us go to his closet, Madge. Thou canst tell me the rest there, while I see what this meaneth.”
“There’s scarce any rest to tell, Mr Anthony; only they are all gone—Master, and Mistress Grena, and Mistress Gertrude, and Osmund, and bay Philbert, and the black mare, and old Jack.”
“What, Jack gone belike! Dear heart alive! Why, Madge, that hath little look of coming again.”
“It hasn’t, Mr Anthony; and one of Mistress Gertrude’s boxes, that she keeps her gems in, lieth open and empty in her chamber.”
The Justice whistled softly as he fitted the key in the lock.