“What may I lay before your Ladyship? Buttons and buttoners of de best, paternosters of de finest, gold and silver collars, chains, crucifixes garnished of stones and pearls; crespines, girdles of every fashion, ouches, rings, tablets (tablets were of two sorts, reliquaries and memorandum-books), charms, gipsers, and forcers (satchels to hang from the waist, and small boxes), combs, spoons, caskets, collars for de leetle dogs, bells, points (tagged laces, then much used), alners (alms-bags, larger than purses), purses, knives, scissors, cups—what asks your Ladyship? Behold dem all.”
“Dost call thyself a jeweller?” asked Lady Foljambe, with a laugh. “Why, thou art jeweller, silversmith, girdler, forcer-maker, and cutler.”
“Dame, I am all men to please my customers,” answered the little jeweller, obsequiously. “Will your Ladyship look? Ah, de beautiful tings!”
“Art thou Englishman?”
“Ah! no, Madame, I am a Breton. I come from Hennebon.”
A sudden flash of suspicious uneasiness lighted up the eyes of the Countess of Montfort’s gaoler. Yet had the man meant mischief, he would scarcely have been so communicative. However that might be, Lady Foljambe determined to get him out of the house as quickly as possible.
“I lack but little of thy sort,” she said. “Howbeit, thou mayest show us thine alners and thy buttons.”
“I would fain have a gipser,” said Mrs Margaret.
While Mrs Margaret was selecting from the stock of gipsers a pretty red velvet one with a silver clasp, price half-a-crown, Perrote came quietly into the hall, and stood beside Amphillis, a little behind Lady Foljambe, who had not heard her entrance.
“Here are de alners, Madame,” said the lively little Breton. “Blue, green, black, white, red, tawny, violet. Will your Ladyship choose? T’ree shillings to free marks—beautiful, beautiful! Den here are—Bon saints, que vois-je? Surely, surely it is Mademoiselle de Carhaix!”