"Oons! 'tis sinful to tear a poor mortal man's heart out, 'tis so. Here be I, a-chasen a villanous creature, the Merry Maid by name, thinken as Master Harry were a forsaken prisoner aboard on her, and 'tis all much ado about nothen, and he a-laughen in his sleeve along o' your cargo! I wouldn' ha' thowt it, not I. Where be the deceiven trickster?"
"Asleep," said Grootz, with a puff of smoke. "Flotsam!" He chuckled and guffawed; it was a joke that would last his lifetime.
"What your meanen may be I don't know, Mynheer; but 'tis me as ought to be sleepen. No sleep ha' I had, not a wink, since Master Harry played this trick on me; ay, 'twas sinful. And I'll punch Ralph Aglionby's costard, I will so, first chance I gets."
"Tell me about it," said Grootz.
Sherebiah related how, on returning to his inn with the money for which he had pledged Harry's trinkets, he was surprised to find his young master absent. As time passed on, and he did not make his appearance, Sherebiah became thoroughly alarmed. About seven o'clock in the evening he hurried off to Southwark, and enquired of the porter at the White Hart whether Captain Aglionby was within. The captain had left a week before, said the porter, in company with a tall, bent, shabby old gentleman. Sherebiah's worst fears were realized. For weeks he had expected the stroke, and now it had fallen suddenly, and at a time when he was not at hand to parry it. He hastened at once to the house in which, as he had made it his business to know, Mr. Berkeley was staying. Neither the squire nor Captain Aglionby was at home. Sherebiah thereupon took his station at a convenient spot near the house whence he could see without being seen, and some time after midnight was rewarded. The two men he sought returned together. Allowing a little time to elapse, he went to the house and asked to see Captain Aglionby, giving the servant a vague message which he believed would bring the captain to the door. Instead of him, however, Mr. Berkeley himself appeared. To Sherebiah's question as to what had become of Harry, the squire replied coldly that he knew nothing about him, and shut the door in his questioner's face.
"Ay, I were a fool to ask un," admitted Sherebiah ruefully. "I had ought to ha' thowt o' poor old feyther o' mine."
Sherebiah was determined to have his question answered somehow. He was early at his post next morning, keeping a careful eye upon the door of the house. He saw the squire and Captain Aglionby issue forth together and visit a lawyer up four flights of stairs in a house near Holborn Bars. He followed all three to a house in a blind alley farther east, never suspecting that Harry was there confined. He shadowed them when they left, saw them enter a coffee-house, followed them when they came out, and then lost sight of them. Returning to his own inn to enquire whether anything had been heard of Harry, he found that a man had called an hour before and left a message for him, asking him to call without delay at an address in Smithfield. Hastening there at once, he learnt from Harry's late jailer how he had been kidnapped and shipped off to the Plantations. At full speed he rushed to the wharf, only to learn that the Merry Maid, William Shovel master, had just taken the tide and was now on her way to the sea.
"You med ha' knocked me down wi' a feather. I sat me down on a box under a gashly torch, and thinks I, 'Rafe Aglionby be too much for 'ee this time, Sherebiah Stand-up-and-bless.' I stood up, I did; time an' tide waits for no man; 'twas a sudden thought; I seed a sailen wherry alongside wharf, and two big swabs hangen round. I showed 'em a crown a-piece, and said there's more to foller, and mebbe summat out o' the Queen's purse too; and here I be, all my poor mortal flesh a-wamblen like a aspen. 'Tis tooken a year off my life, ay, 'tis so."
Jan Grootz smiled.
"Mine good vrient," he said, "I tell you dis. You will come ashore with me; we will go to your inn and fetch your goods. It will delay us, but only one day. Den my ship sails; Amsterdam; you will come?"