"Aha! I knew it was a water-spaniel," said Master Etheridge, triumphantly. "The rogue would have it a terrier." This hasty speech required that the goldsmith should relate how the impostor had played upon him and his household; at which news Master Holyday had to open his eyes, and feign great astonishment and indignation. He found this kind of acting easier than he had supposed, and was beginning to feel like a live, normal creature; when suddenly his mind was brought back to the real task before him by Master Etheridge, saying:
"Well, the rascal failed of his purpose here, whatever it was; and now 'twill please the women to see the true after the counterfeit. This way, pray—what, art so ill? Tom, Dickon, hold him up!"
"Nay, I can walk, I thank ye," said poor Holyday, faintly, and accompanied his host into the passage, and up the stairs to the large room overlooking Cheapside. No one being there, the goldsmith went elsewhere in search of his wife, leaving the scholar to a discomfiting solitude. He gazed out of the window at the cross, and fancied he saw the edge of a hat-brim that he knew, protruding from the other side. He cursed the hour when he had fallen in with Ravenshaw, and wished an earthquake might swallow the goldsmith's house.
When he heard Master Etheridge returning, and the swish of a feminine gown, he felt that the awful moment had come. But it was only the goldsmith's wife, and she proved such a motherly person that he found it quite tolerable to sit answering her questions. Presently Master Etheridge was called down to the shop, and his wife had some sewing brought to her, at which she set to work, keeping up with Holyday a conversation oft broken by many long pauses.
Each time the door opened, the scholar trembled for fear Mistress Millicent would enter. But as time passed and she came not, a new fear assailed him,—that he might not be able to see her at all, and that the dread stroke of eleven should bring some catastrophe not to be imagined. He was now as anxious for her arrival on the scene as he had first dreaded it. His heart went up to his throat when the door opened again; and down to his shoes when it let in nobody but Sir Peregrine Medway.
The old knight inspected Holyday for a moment with the curiosity due to genuine ware after one has been imposed upon by spurious; and then he dropped the youth from attention as a person of no consequence, and asked for Mistress Millicent.
"Troth," said Mistress Etheridge, "the baggage must needs be keeping her bed two hours or so; said she was not well. She has missed her lesson on the virginals. I know not what ails her of late. I'm sure 'twas not so with me when I was toward marriage,—but she sha'n't mope longer in her chamber. Lettice!" she called, going to the door, and gave orders to the woman.
Holyday breathed fast, and stared at the door. After a short while Millicent entered, with pouting lips, crimson cheeks, and angry eyes; she came forward in a reluctant way, and submitted to the tremulous embrace of the old knight. Not until she was free of his shaking arms did she take note of Master Holyday, and then she looked at him with the faintest sign of inquiry.
As for the scholar, a single glance had given him a sweeping sense of her beauty; daunted by it, he had dropped his eyes, and he dared not raise them from the tips of her neatly shod feet, which showed themselves beneath the curtain of her pink petticoat.
"'Tis my daughter, Master Holyday," said Mistress Etheridge, "and soon to be Sir Peregrine's lady." Holyday bowed vaguely at the pretty shoes, and cast a vacuous smile upon the old knight.