Do not forget that, in the eye of the Law, Master Nathaniel was a dead man.
CHAPTER XVIII
MISTRESS IVY PEPPERCORN
The tasks assigned to the clerks in Master Nathaniel's counting-house did not always concern cargoes and tonnage. For instance, once for two whole days they had not opened a ledger, but had been kept busy, under their employer's supervision, in cutting out and pinning together fantastic paper costumes to be worn at Ranulph's birthday party. And they were quite accustomed to his shutting himself into his private office, with strict injunctions that he was not to be disturbed, while he wrote, say, a comic valentine to old Dame Polly Pyepowders, popping his head frequently round the door to demand their help in finding a rhyme. So they were not surprised that morning when told to close their books and to devote their talents to discovering, by whatever means they chose, whether there were any relations living in Lud of a west country farmer called Gibberty who had died nearly forty years ago.
Great was Master Nathaniel's satisfaction when one of them returned from his quest with the information that the late farmer's widowed daughter, Mistress Ivy Peppercorn, had recently bought a small grocer's shop in Mothgreen, a village that lay a couple of miles beyond the north gate.
There was no time to be lost, so Master Nathaniel ordered his horse, put on the suit of fustian he wore for fishing, pulled his hat well down over his eyes, and set off for Mothgreen.
Once there, he had no difficulty in finding Mistress Ivy's little shop, and she herself was sitting behind the counter.
She was a comely, apple-cheeked woman of middle age, who looked as if she would be more in her element among cows and meadows than in a stuffy little shop, redolent of the various necessities and luxuries of a village community.
She seemed of a cheerful, chatty disposition, and Master Nathaniel punctuated his various purchases with quips and cranks and friendly questions.