She left me and presently came back dressed, not as an Orange Girl, but as a common person, such as one may see anywhere in St. Giles's. She had on a linsey woolsey frock: a dirty white apron all in holes: a kerchief round her neck: another over her head tied under her chin: a straw hat also tied under her chin: and woollen mittens on her hands. One cheek was smudged as by a coal, and her left eye was blackened: no one would have recognised her. On her arm she carried a basket carefully covered up.
'Now,' she said, 'I'm a woman with a basket full of stolen goods for Mother Wilmot.'
I let her out by the garden-door which opened on to Hog's Lane. Presently she returned: from what she told me, this was what passed.
She found her mother nodding over knitting, and her sister Doll busy with the slate. The kitchen was well-nigh empty because most of the frequenters were abroad picking up their living. Like the sparrows they pick it up as they can from pockets and doorways and from shop bulks.
'Doll,' she whispered. 'Pretend not to know me. Turn over the things in the basket.'
'What is it, Jenny?'
She looked round the room. There were only two or three sitting by the fire. 'No one who knows me,' she said. 'Tell me, Doll. Has Mr. Merridew been here—and when?'
'Why, he's only just gone. Him and the Bishop—and the Captain—and another one—a gentleman he looked like. All in black.'
'All in black? Was he tall and thin and stooping? So?'
'Yes. They've been talking over it all the morning.'