“Well, if you must know I was sorry for the little mistress, Aline Gillespie, who lived with them. She and I did not get on very well; but Mistress Mowbray treated her like a dog. Mistress Aline, though, did me a good turn once, when I got into trouble, and somehow I would have liked to do her a good turn too, by way of paying back. I do not like being in any one’s debt. But there, I make mistakes like most of the rest of us. What do I owe you?” he said, turning to the innkeeper. “It’s time I was going.”
Andrew settled his score and was just leaving when another man entered.
“Hullo, Andrew,” said the newcomer, “whither away in such haste? Come back, man,” and then he added something in a low voice in which Ian distinctly caught the word “Holwick.”
This was a strange coincidence, Ian thought, to meet two people within a few minutes who both knew Holwick and he wondered who the newcomer might be. He had not long to wait.
The stranger turned to the innkeeper and said, “Timothy, man, I’m back again; you’ve got a place for my pack-horses for the night, I hope.”
“There’s always room for old friends,” said the innkeeper.
“Is there anything you’ll be buying yourself?” asked the stranger. “Faith, man, but I’ve some fine things, but you’re getting that set up in Carlisle that a man who only brings goods from Flanders and Italy and Persia and India, to say nothing of the latest novelties from London, is hardly likely to please you. But I’ve got some rugs now that would just stir your heart. You never saw the like. I have just refused 300 florins for one of them, but I’ll let an old friend have it for that price.”
“Oh, stop your gammon, Walter,” said the innkeeper. “You need not tell me your tales. If there’s anything good and cheap, I may take it, but I do not want any of your flowery word fancies.”
“Odds bodikins! mine host is very plain spoken,” rejoined Walter, “but come along, sirs, what do you want?” addressing the little group, and he unrolled a bundle as he spoke.
Although Walter made the most of them, his wares really were thoroughly good stuff, and he had a happy taste in making his selections; consequently he always did good business wherever he went, and it was rumoured that he had a pretty pile laid by for a rainy day.