“He has left town,” he said to Richard. “He must have seen me before I met you. I have had dealings with him before, and he knew what I would do if I caught him here. Well, he has left you your cloth and the price of the stuff, less one bad penny. Will you sell the cloth to me? I am a wool-merchant, not a cloth-merchant, but I can use a cloak made of good homespun.”
Richard looked up at his new friend with a face so bright with gratitude and relief that the young merchant laughed again. “What are you going to do with the penny?” he asked the boy, curiously.
“I’d like to throw it in the river,” said Richard in sudden wrath. “Then it would cheat no more poor folk.”
“They say that if you drop a coin in a stream it is a sign you will return,” said Edrupt, still laughing, “and we want neither Waibling nor his money here again. Suppose we nail it up by the market-cross for a warning to others? How would that be?”
This was the beginning of a curious collection of coins that might be seen, some years later, nailed to a post in the market of King’s Barton. There were also the names of those who had passed them, and in time, some dishonest goods also were fastened up there for all to see. When Richard saw the coin in its new place he gave a sigh of relief.
“I’ll be going home now,” he said. “Mother’s alone, and she will be wanting me.”
“Ride with me so far as Dame Lavender’s,” said the wool-merchant good-naturedly. “What’s thy name, by the way?”
“Richard Garland. Father was a sailor, and his name was Sebastian,” said the boy soberly. “Mother won’t let me say he is drowned, but I’m afraid he is.”
“Sebastian Garland,” repeated Edrupt thoughtfully. “And so thy mother makes her living weaving wool, does she?”
“Aye,” answered Richard. “She’s frae Dunfermline last, but she was born in the Highlands.”