George was an apprentice whom, for his cleverness, Mistress Etheridge was wont to employ on errands. Millicent could see him now in the outer shop, busy with other apprentices in covering the cases and closing up the front.
"'Zooks!" grumbled the goldsmith; "thy mother would best take the lad for a page, and be done with it."
Millicent passed on to the front shop.
"George," said she, when out of her father's hearing, but in that of one or two of the other apprentices, "you are to come with me to Mistress Carroll's next door; there is something to fetch back. Nay, wait till you have done here; I'll run ahead, 'tis but a step."
Upon the hazard that her father, in the rear shop, would not lift up his eyes from his money for some little time, she passed out to Cheapside. In a breath she was around the corner, from the crowd and the window-lights, into the dusk and desertion of Friday Street. She stooped and picked up her cloak and bag; then ran on, to the gate.
"Speed! speed! there's not a moment to lose!" she whispered, catching the elbow of the man who stood there, and who had not heard her coming swiftly up behind him.
He turned and stared, putting his eyes close to hers on account of the darkness; she saw that he had a great, scarred, bearded face, and that his body was twice the breadth of Master Holyday's.
"Oh, God!" she exclaimed, drawing back. "I thought you were Master Holyday."
"Master Holyday, eh?" growled the man. "What of him?"