“Bess, are you much of a sailor?”
She smiled at him and shook her head.
“How should I remember? It is so long ago. I am not afraid,” and her eyes delighted him.
“We may have a rough passage.”
“I am used to storms—”
“God knows, dear, yes!” and he held her hand.
The coach drew up before an inn close to the quay, with a few sailors lounging on the benches under the windows, and a weathered sign-board bearing a rude painting of the “King Harry” creaking on its rusty hinges above the door.
Jeffray sprang out of the coach and crossed the footway with his sword under his arm. A few hairy and inquisitive faces were pressed against the windows of the tap-room. Jeffray eyed them keenly, alive to the possibilities of old Grimshaw’s malice. He looked round the tap-room as he entered, scanning the sailors, who smoked their pipes and stared at him in turn. He found the innkeeper coming down the dark passage from the kitchen, a little man, bald, buckled, and white-aproned, with a red wart in the middle of his forehead.
“Good-morning, landlord. I hear a brig is to sail for France to-day.”
The innkeeper bowed, rubbed his double chin, and pointed Jeffray to the door of the parlor. The sound of voices came from the room, bluff with the burliness of the sea.