“Dame Good had two fowls stolen last night,” said a voice in the crowd.
“Yea, and there are two fine linen sheets stolen from the vicarage hedge,” piped another.
“He looks a strange mortal,” said a third.
“And wears gold rings in his ears,” cried a fourth. “A’ must be a foreigner, and maybe a Papist.”
“Foreigner or Papist I am not, good folks, but a true-born Englishman, and a good hater of all Frenchmen and Spaniards. So let me go forward peaceably. As for the clout I gave Master Peter, here is a groat to mend it. I have but a round dozen, or I would give him two.”
With that he would have moved forward, but John Broad barred the way.
“Not till I have taken thee before his worship,” said he. “What, am I not constable of this parish, and duly sworn to arrest all suspicious persons, sturdy beggars, and what not?”
The sailor paused and drew his breath, and looked at the constable’s round figure as if in doubt what to do.
“I am loth to hurt thee,” said he, “but if I hit thee, Master Constable, thou wilt never more drink ale nor smell beef. Know that once in Palermo there came upon me a great brown bear that had got loose from his ward, and I hit him fair and square between the eyes, and he fell, and when they took him up, his skull it was cracked. Is thy skull harder than the bear’s?”