“Here be Ezekiel French just drove up,” he remarked.
Anny looked up at the clock.
“Mother o’ Grace!” she ejaculated, “I have forgot to call Mistress Sue,” and she ran out of the door and up the stairs to the little room which she and Sue shared.
Hal picked up the sail-cloth bundle and handed it to Cip, who took it without a word and went out into the yard. He stood talking to French some minutes and then walked over to his cart.
“Poor little lassie,” he muttered as he climbed into the tumbril and turned the piebald gelding out of the gate. “Poor little lassie,” he repeated. “Lord, ain’t we particular when we’re young.” He looked at the bundle on the floor behind him and shrugged his shoulders. “This here Black’erchief Dick and all,” he concluded, sighing and whipping up his horse.
Big French stood in the Ship yard talking to Hal and old John Pattern, the ostler. He leaned lazily against the shaft of his wagon, an arm stretched out over the back of one of the horses. The wagon was half full of mysterious sacking-covered bales and little round casks, the first containing silk and the other tobacco.
“Have ye got them ten trusses’ straw I bespoke, Hal?” French was saying, the barley stalk he was chewing moving up and down in his mouth.
“Ay, in the barn; that on the right is yourn,” Hal replied readily.
Big French looked at John Pattern enquiringly. The old man grinned. “That’ll be all right, sir,” he said, pocketing the coin which the big man had given him.
“You’ll cover the stuff well up?” French enquired. “Undo the first five truss and spread it over the stuff and then put the rest, bound up, atop, you know how.”