"About one month," he replied. "As I have told you. Mistress Constance, all my kinsfolk that I wot of are now dead, except my young brother John, whom I doubt not you yet do bear in mind—that fair, winsome, mischievous urchin, who was carried to La Rochelle about one year before your sweet mother died."
"Yea," I said, "I can see him yet gallopping on a stick round the parlor at Lichfield."
"'Tis to look for him," Edmund said, "I am come to London. Albeit I fear much inquiry on my part touching this youth should breed suspicion, I cannot refrain, brotherly love soliciting me thereunto, from seeking him whom report saith careth but little for his soul, and who hath no other relative in the world than myself. I have warrant for to suppose he should be in London; but these four weeks, [{646}] with useless diligence, I have made search for him, leaving no place unsought where I could suspect him to abide; and as I see no hopes of success, I am resolved to leave the city for a season."
Then Mr. Wells proposed to carry Edmund to Kate's house, where some friends were awaiting him; and for some days I saw him not again. But on the next Sunday evening he came to our house, and I noticed a paleness in him I had not before perceived. I asked him if anything had disordered him.
"Nothing," he answered; "only methinks my old shaking malady doth again threaten me; for this morning, walking forth of mine inn to visit a friend on the other side of the city, and passing by St. Paul's church, when I was on the east side thereof, I felt suddenly a strange sensation in my body, so much that my face glowed, and it seemed to me as if mine hair stood on end; all my joints trembled, and my whole body was bathed in a cold sweat. I feared some evil was threatening me, or danger of being taken up, and I looked back to see if I could perceive any one to be pursuing me; but I saw nobody near, only a youth in a brown-colored cloak; and so, concluding that some affection of my head or liver had seized me, I thought no more on it, but went forward to my intended place to say mass."
A strange thinking came into mine head at that moment, and I doubted if I should impart to him my sudden fancy.
"Mr. Edmund," I said, unable to refrain myself, "suppose that youth in the brown cloak should have been your brother!"
He started, but shaking of his head said:
"Nay, nay, why should it have been him rather than a thousand others I do see every day?"
"Might not that strange effect in yourself betoken the presence of a kinsman?"