The house of the merchant now stood before them, and Sir Osborne, dismounting from his horse, advanced to the door of what seemed to be a small dark counting-house, in which he found an old man, with many a book and many a slate before him, busily employed in adding to the multitude of little black marks with which the page under his eyes was cumbered.
In answer to the knight's inquiry for Master William Hans, he replied that he was in the warehouse, where he might find him if he wished to see him. "Stay, stay! I will show you the way," cried he, with ready politeness. "Lord, sir! our warehouse is a wilderness, wherein a man might lose himself with blessed facility. Thanks be to God therefor; for on May-day, three years last past, called 'Evil May-day,' we should have lost our good master, when the prentices, and watermen, and pick-purses, and vagabonds, broke into all the aliens' houses, and injured many; but, happily, he hid himself under a pile of stockfish, which was in the far end of the little warehouse, to the left of the barrel-room, so that they found him not."
While he pronounced this oration, the old clerk locked carefully the door of the counting-house, and led the knight into an immense vaulted chamber, wherein were piled on every side all kinds of things, of every sort and description that human ingenuity can apply to the supply of its necessities or the gratification of its appetites. On one side were displayed a thousand articles of foreign produce or manufacture brought thither for the English market, and on the other appeared the various productions of England, destined soon to be spread over half the world. The objects that met the eye were not more various than the smells that assailed the nose. Here was the delicious odour of salted fish, there the delicate scent of whale oil; here dry skins spread their perfume around, and there a cask of fresh tallow wasted its sweetness on the warehouse air; while through the whole was perceived, as a general medium for all the rest, the agglomerated stink of a hundred unventilated years.
Making his way through all, Sir Osborne proceeded directly towards the spot where a small window in the roof poured its light upon a large barrel, the contents of which were undergoing inspection by the worthy Fleming whom he sought. In Flanders the knight had known the good burgess well, and had been sure to receive a visit from him whenever business had called his steps from his adopted to his native country. There might be both an eye to gratitude and an eye to interest in this proceeding of Master William Hans; for the knight had twice procured him a large commission for the army, and, what was still more in those days, had procured him payment.
On perceiving his visitor in the present instance, the merchant caught up his black furred gown, which he had thrown off while busied in less dignified occupations, and having hastily insinuated his arms into the sleeves, advanced to meet the knight with a bow of profound respect. "Welcome back to England, my lord!" cried he, in very good English, which could only be distinguished as proceeding from the mouth of a foreigner by a slight accent and a peculiar intonation. "Coot now, my lord, I hope you have not given up your company in Flanders. I have such a cargo of beans in the mouth of the Scheldt, it would have suited the army very well indeet."
"But, my good Master Hans," answered the knight, "the army itself is given up since the peace. When I left Lisle, there were scarce three companies left."
After a good deal more of such preliminary conversation, in the course of which the knight explained to the merchant the necessity of keeping his name and title secret for the present, they proceeded to the arrangement of those affairs which yet remained unconcluded between them. Conducting the knight back to the counting-house, William Hans turned over several of his great books, looking for the accounts.
"Here it is, I think," he cried, at length. "No! that is the Lady de Grey's."
"Lady Constance de Grey?" demanded Sir Osborne, in some surprise.
"Yes, yes!" answered the merchant. "I receive all the money for her mother's estates, who was a French lady. Did for her father, too, till the coot old lord died. Oh! it was hard work in the time of the war; but I got a Paris Jew to transmit the money to a Flemish Jew, who sent it over to me. They cot ten per cent. the thieves! for commission, but that very thing saved the estates; for they would have been forfeited by the old king Louis, if the Jew, who had given him money in his need, had not made such a noise about it, for fear of losing his ten per cent, that the king let it pass. Ah! here is the account. First, we have not settled since I furnished the wine for the companie, when they had the fever. Five hundred chioppines of wine, at a croat the chioppine, make just twenty-five marks: received thirty marks; five carried to your name. Then for the ransom of the Sire de Beaujeu: you put him at a ransom of two thousand crowns, not knowing who he was, but he has sent you six thousand; because, he says, he would not be ransomed like an écuyer. Creat fool! Why the devil, when he could get off for a little, pay a much?"[[11]]