"Dare not!" cried Barecolt, seizing a knife that lay upon the table, and starting up with an ominous look--"Dare not! What is it that I dare not? Now, look you, repeat that word again, and you shall go forth from this room with no more ears than a grinder's cur. Dare not! thou small chandler, I could break you across my knee like a piece of rotten wood."
There was some truth in what he said, and the small man felt the force of that truth, so that he thought it expedient to lower his tone.
"I meant I would take the law of you if you did," he said; "so no more of cutting off ears, Master Barecolt, for we have sharp justices in Nottingham. But what I said is very true. I know old Dry very well; have known him, indeed, these twelve years. When first he used to come to Hull to buy goods of the Hamburghers, I had a shop there, where he used to stop and take a glass of cinnamon now and then. But he has grown a great man now, and would hardly notice an old acquaintance, especially as he was riding with men of war."
"And you are sure he had a woman with him?" asked Barecolt, resuming his seat and filling his glass.
"A sort of girl, mayhap some sixteen years of age," answered his companion. "She looked somewhat rueful too, with her eyes cast down upon the ground as she rode along."
"That's she," replied Barecolt; "'tis beyond all doubt. What does the dried herring at Hull, I wonder? Let me see. It would take some threescore men to capture Hull, I doubt?"
"Threescore!" exclaimed the other; "some thirty thousand, you mean."
Barecolt gave him a look of unutterable contempt. "Four petards," he said, continuing his own calculations in an under tone, "for the outer gate, the bridge, the inner gate, and one to spare, ha! threescore men--half must be musketeers. Well, there is Hughes's company. I will do it."
"You had better not try," answered his companion. "I could tell you a much better plan, if you would strike a bargain in an honest way, and give me half the reward for finding this young woman, as you say there are great folks looking after her."
"Half the reward, thou little Carthagenian!" exclaimed Barecolt. "By my faith! if you have half the reward, you shall have the danger too; and a quarter of it would turn your liver as white as a hen pigeon's."