Mistress Pullen giggled and applied herself industriously to her needlework.
“I warrant me you’re not so well served at the Ship as you were at the Victory, Master Blueneck?” she said without looking up.
Blueneck laughed bitterly.
“You’re right, mistress,” he said, forgetting the “señora” to Amy’s disappointment. “The Ship is none so bad a tavern, as taverns are nowadays, but ’tis of a truth much inferior to the Victory.”
“I wonder that the Captain rests him there then?” said Mistress Amy, glancing under her lashes at her visitor.
“Marry, so do I.” Blueneck’s tone was almost querulous. “Why look you, mistress,” he added, “is it not bad for our trade for us to tarry so long at one place, ay, more especially when ’tis here in the East where the creeks are as unknown to us as to the excise men themselves?”
“Of a truth ’tis bad indeed,” Mistress Pullen spoke with conviction. “I wonder the Captain has it so,” she remarked again glancing sideways at him.
Blueneck looked into the fire for a moment before he spoke. “Methinks the Captain is bewitched,” he said at last.
“Bewitched!” Mistress Amy, her thoughts flying at once to her other visitor of the evening, spoke in some alarm.