"You remember all I told you yesterday, no doubt?" said Jerningham. "Touching the place you are going to, I mean."
"Yes; I shall find it easily enough. Ay, four o'clock, I know. And particular instructions will come in a few days. I can wait for instructions while provisions last. But one thing--a steward's chain--good gold, look you!"
"It shall be of the best," replied Jerningham, with his strange smile. "When it comes," he said to himself, as the captain rode out of the gate.
And the captain was saying to _himself_: "Either his knave has not told him, or he counts it of no matter. Ten to one, from his look, he is forging some plot against her; but she will be safe from all plots this time to-morrow, I think." And he headed his horse for the Canterbury road.
Jerningham went to his own chamber in Winchester House, a fair room looking toward the church of St. Mary Overie. He had not been there a quarter of an hour, when to him came Gregory, dusty and tired, but eager-eyed.
"What news?" inquired the master, with simulated coldness.
"An't please you, sir, I have stuck to his heels since you bade me. Twice they led me to that goldsmith's house."
"Ah! What happened there? Make short telling of it, knave!"
"The first time was last night. The maid talked with him alone in the garden. I could not hear what they said, until she called him by the name of Holyday."
"A false name. The rascal!--then he has his plot, too!"
"Ay, sir; and, thinking to nip it in the bud, I came forth and denounced him to her, saying he was Ravenshaw. Belike he spoke of it to you awhile ago."
"She spurned him as he were kennel mud, and he came away like a whipped hound. But I had already given him the slip, to save my skin."
"Troth, then, all betwixt her and him must have come to naught."
"So one would think. And yet--But you must know that I still dogged him, to carry out your full command. He kept me waiting outside many taverns, but at last went into a house in Smithfield which I took to be his lodging for the night. Bethinking me of the danger if he chanced to see me by daylight, I went to a friend of mine in that neighbourhood--a horse-stealer, if truth must be told--and borrowed a false beard and a countryman's russet coat. In these I followed the man when he set forth at daybreak with his companion, that lean young gentleman you saw with him in Paul's."