“Ha, I’ve seen her!” said Master Hooker to his son. “She’s a picter, she is, Joseph, and belongs to the nobility. On that I’ll take my Biblical! Wonderful fair hands she ’ave, white as surf; and harkee, Joseph, diamonds a-shining on ’em.”
The landlord communicated this final phrase with his mouth close to Joseph’s ear.
“And I’m thinking,” he continued, “that even if they don’t happen to be royalty, they may requite us. Ye can lay to it, they’ve got some blunt about ’em, somewhere. Now, Joseph, I’m going to find out who they are.”
“And if they are proscribed?” said Joseph, breathlessly.
The landlord put his hand against his mouth and said, with an eager secrecy:
“If they are proscribed, I shall first suck ’em dry like an egg, d’ye see, and then I shall break ’em like the empty shell.”
The son shuddered. He had no opinion in these things one way or another, but his was not the rapacity that could grind its heel into the face of a dying man.
All that day the landlord’s doubts were unresolved. He was not once allowed within the chamber. Despite his frequent approaches with food and questions as pretexts for the satisfaction of his curiosity, the entrance was ever sedulously kept. True, he would be greeted at once by the lady’s courteous appearance, but every time her form would intervene between him and the interior of the room; and there would always be her chin and mouth shot out in a long-drawn “Hush!” and worlds of entreaty in her eyes.
The evening found the landlord no nearer to the truth. He was growing desperate. It was imperative that he should know something of his guests.
Three times that day had he asked the lady for her name and that of her companion, and three times had he been put off by the tender tact that only a woman has. Again he sat before the fire with the hot liquor, and the candles, and the hissing logs about him, with the door and shutters fast against the wintry night. He sat coiled in thought. There were little knots of it upon his brow; it crouched and ruminated in his eyes; it crept round his wizened lips; his very hands were clenched upon it.