"Then I shall hold myself freed of my promise, and if you cannot make one place a home for me, you shall make another. I shall tell the bishop all that is between us—oh, I shall get word to him, doubt it not!—and I know what so good a man will do. He will make you marry me, that is what he will! My birth—"
"Oh, peace! I was jesting. I will send a man. Is that all?"
"Ay, and little enough. There's much a man can do there, for the good of the place itself. Will you send him to-day?"
"Why, faith, if I can find him—a man fit for the place, I mean. I have much to do to-day."
"But I cannot endure another night there, with none but Jeremy in the house. You must send him to-day; else I swear I will come—"
"Nay, give me a little time," pleaded Jerningham, thinking that if he could but hold her off with promises for two days, her disclosure would matter little, as by that time he would be afloat—unless weather should hinder the sailing. At this "unless," he frowned, and remembered the fortune-teller's prediction. Without doubt, what Mistress Meg might do was the obstacle in the case. He entertained a morbid fear of an impediment arising at the last moment. The woman was capable of keeping her threat; and the bishop was capable of staying him at the very lifting of the anchor, capable even of having him pursued and brought back as long as he was in home waters. Meg knew nothing of his voyage. He must keep that from her, as well as satisfy her in the matter of her request. The wise man had said that "prudence" might avoid the obstacle; Jerningham must deal prudently with her. "I will send a man next week," quoth he.
"I will give you till to-morrow to find a fit man," she replied, resolutely. "To-night I can sit up with candles lit. But if your man be not there to-morrow at four o'clock in the afternoon, I shall start for London; if I come a-horseback I can be here by eight."
Jerningham fetched a heavy sigh. He knew this woman, and when she meant what she said, and how impossible it was to move her on those occasions. He thought what a close player his adverse fiend was, to set the time of her possible revelation upon the very eve of his departure. Durst he hazard some very probable hitch of her causing? No; that would not be "prudence." He must not only promise her; he must also send the man. After all, that was no difficult matter; once the master was safe away on the seas, destined to come back rich enough to defy bishop and all, or come back never at all, let the man look where he might for his wage. It was but palming off upon her the first ruffian to be hired, who might behave decently for a week or so.
Jerningham's face lightened, therefore; he gave his word, slipped the woman a coin to pay her boatman, saw her to the boat by which she had come, and then took his seat in the one awaiting him, and bade the waterman make haste to the Temple stairs.
As he and Gregory walked into the Temple church, he did not immediately know the man who hastened up to meet him; for the up-turned moustaches, and the bareness of chin, except for the little tuft beneath the lip, gave the captain a somewhat spruce and gallant appearance, notwithstanding his plain attire.