Dick gave the order, and the boy obeyed sullenly, slopping a good gill of the wine over the side of the tankard as he handed it to the Spaniard. Then suddenly, as though realizing the absurdity of his childishness, he drew it back, and, mumbling something about not quite the full measure, filled it up again, wiped the pewter with the skirt of his sacking apron before he once more offered it to the Spaniard, who stood looking through the open door without apparently having noticed the boy at all. Now, however, he took the tankard, drained it at a draught and threw down a silver coin by way of payment.
“Marry, master tapster,” he said approvingly, “I do not look to find a sweeter cup of sack any place from here to the New World—another, I prithee,” and added, as Hal set it before him, “An I grow this partiality for sweet sack, Hal, methinks I shall needs have to borrow the belt of that merry knight, John Falstaff, whom I saw in a foolish piece at the playhouse when last I visited London, that city of evil stenches.”
Hal did not follow the jest, but in spite of this and his present ill-humour, he was forced to laugh with the spry little Spaniard who chuckled so mirthfully, and whose bright sparkling eyes were dancing as they glanced at him over the tankard’s rim.
At this moment Anny entered the kitchen and Dick, seeing her, raised his rumkin.
“To the health of Mother Swayle’s charge,” he said, smiling.
Gilbot looked up suddenly.
“Mother Swayle?” he said in surprise, and then added confidentially to Dick, “Terrible old woman—in liquor nearly all the day—oh, disgusting.” He finished his draught, smacked his lips, and wiped them with the back of his hand. “Ah, you’re right, sir, wonderful sack we sells,” he remarked.
The Spaniard suggested that he should take another and Gilbot cheerfully accepted.
“Master Blueneck is coming up the road, an it please you, sir,” said Sue, coming in from the courtyard.
“Ah, I thank thee, Mistress,” said the Spaniard courteously as he turned to help Anny lift an unusually heavy log on to the cracking fire, but Sue curtseyed and blushed as though he had looked at her with the same fire in his glance as lurked in the one which he bestowed on the younger girl, and her lip trembled as he turned away. All this which he saw and a great deal more which he thought he saw made Master Ezekiel French bite his honey-coloured beard and swear many oaths and curses against the slim white-handed little foreigner who chatted so gallantly with the wenches of the Ship.