Hugh had been so much absorbed that he had thought little of Roger, although he did not relax any of his precautions as to keeping his work hidden, and Wat and Joan were far more watchful guardians than he dreamt of.
He had a great surprise one Sunday when they came in from St. Mary Arches, and he saw a big man standing in the doorway, which was still wreathed with the midsummer greenery, and looked at him at first as if he were a stranger. The man, in his turn, stared from one to the other as if in search of someone; something struck Hugh as familiar, and the next moment he sprang to his side and seized his hand.
“Master Andrew!” he cried in delight, “where have you come from? How long have you been here? Are you well? How is Moll?”
The sailor put his hands on his shoulders, held him at arm’s length, and looked him up and down in amazement, which soon broadened into a laugh.
“I never thought to have found thee grown to this size!” he said; “thou art a man, and a proper one! Where have I come from? From Exmouth, and I would have sailed up in the Queen Maud if your burgesses of Exeter had not been fools enough to let a woman ruin their river for them with her weir. I have had a wish many a time to know how thou fared, and Friar Luke—we are good friends, what thinkest thou of that? I never thought to be friends with a grey friar—gives me no peace because I bring him no tidings. Thy father? Ay, anyone could see it was that way with him, honest man! And Agrippa?”
There was much to hear and tell. The warden took a great fancy to Andrew and would not listen to his going to a hostelry for the night, and Prothasy was pleased to see her husband interested. But the one who took most to Andrew, and who in his turn was greatly liked by the sailor, was Wat. Andrew vowed that Wat should have been a sailor, and Wat was almost ready to renounce everything in favour of the sea. Wat told him all about Hugh, and his work and his genius, and what great things were entrusted to him at the Cathedral, and promised to take him there the next morning as early as the doors were opened, and Joan, Hugh, and Wat must all go forth after the five o’clock supper, and show him the castle and St. Nicolas’ Priory, which he looked at with disfavour in spite of his friendship with Friar Luke, and the alms-houses of Saint Alexius, which pleased him better. All these, but more especially the bridge, made him own that Exeter was a very noble city.
Hugh could not go to the Cathedral as early as the others the next morning, because the master wanted some measurements taken, but he was to follow almost immediately, and there could not have been a prouder showman than Wat. He scarcely let Andrew glance round at the fair beauty of the building before he was off to fetch Hugh’s ladder and to set it up against the pillar. They were, as he intended to be, the first there, and the covering might be safely taken off, but he was so prudent that he darted off to watch, calling to Andrew to go up and unwrap the covering for himself. As he stood in the nave, it struck him that he heard a cry, but he set it down to someone outside, and when some minutes had passed, and he thought time enough had been given, he hurried back, expecting to find the sailor full of admiration. Instead of this he met him coming towards him, looking, as even Wat could not fail to see, rather strangely disturbed. He said at once and roughly—
“Fine traps you set for strangers!”
“How, master?”
“How? In placing a ladder which has been cut through. Nay, I like not such jests.”