“Marry! did he not?” said Anny quickly. “Ay, with his thin white fingers cracking under their weight, and the muddied side o’ the skep rubbing on his silken hose, did he carry onions for me, and I stumbling along at his side for all the world like a Hythe oyster wench. Oh! Lord, the tales he did tell,” and she broke off into a little chuckle, and Sue frowned.
“I would speak seriously with you, Anny,” she began.
Anny sighed and tossed like a naughty child and then resigned herself to the lecture she felt was coming.
“I am listening,” she said.
Sue spoke earnestly and sincerely.
“Methinks you care too much for the Spaniard, lass,” she said.
Anny gasped audibly but said nothing, and Sue, mistaking the sound for a sigh of confession, went on:
“He is a dangerous man for a young wench to think on,” she said. “I would not trust a man who looked so boldly at every smirking lass who chanced to stand in his way as he walked from the yard to the brig. Ah! you may laugh, but I know; I served in this inn long before you came, and I’ve seen men and wenches, time and again. Remember what befell Maria Turnby when her husband left for the Indies. There’s a thing for him to hear when he comes back again, poor fellow—his own children left to starve that sweetbreads may be served for another man’s brats. Oh, Anny, lass,” Sue’s voice shook in its earnestness, “have a care, have a care. Men be eels wi’ maids. And this Delfazio, as he is pleased to call himself, is a deal more eel-like than many other menfish. What with his soft laughter, and hands like white and polished bone, together with black wanton eyes! Oh! have a care, I know tales of him; they say no one ever dares to come between him and his wishes, and that never since he was a squalling brat has he been stayed from getting what he wants. Anny, perchance he wants you, and perchance you will be bewitched into letting him get his way.”
Anny sat up on her straw mattress, her bright eyes glittering in the ray of starlight which shone in through the uncurtained window, and her little white teeth clenched.
“Methinks you wrong me, mistress,” she said, restraining her voice with difficulty. “I have no love for any crawling foreigner. What if he do eat and talk like the quality; I tell thee there are thirty other men I would rather marry than a brown-skinned Spaniard.”