"Man, she is my distant cousin, not my wife. I would she were, but how can two high-placed paupers wed?"
"Perhaps it is for this reason that my lord wishes to borrow money."
Again he shrugged his shoulders, and as we entered the shop I threw back the hood from off my head upon which I wore a merchant's cap of velvet. The lady Blanche caught sight of me and started.
"Surely, surely," she began, "you are he who shot the three arrows at the cave's mouth at Hastings."
"Yes, my lady, and did your hawk escape the dogs upon the London road?"
"Nay, it was crippled and died, which was the first of many troubles, for I think my luck rode away with you that day, Master Hubert of Hastings," she added with a sigh.
"There are other hawks and luck returns," I replied, bowing. "Perhaps this trinket will bring it back to you, my lady," and taking the snake-surrounded ruby heart, I proffered it to her with another bow.
"Oh!" she said, her blue eyes shining with pleasure, "oh! it is beautiful, but whence is the price to come for so costly a thing?"
"I think the matter is one that can wait."
At that moment the lord Deleroy broke in, saying,
"So you are the man who slew the French knight with an ancient sword, and afterwards shot three other Frenchmen with three shafts, sending one of them through shield and mail and body, a tale that was spoken of afterwards, even in London. God's truth! you should be serving the King in the wars, not yourself behind the counter."
"There are many ways of serving, my lord," I answered, "by pen and merchandise as well as by steel and shafts. Now with me it is the turn of the former, though perhaps the ancient sword and the great black bow wait till their time comes again."
He stared at me and muttered, half to himself:
"A strange merchant and a grim, as those dead Frenchmen may have thought. I tell you, Sir Trader, that your talk and the eyes of that tall Moor of yours turn my back cold; it is as though someone walked over my grave. Come, Blanche, let us begone ere our horses be chilled as I am. Master Grimmer, or Hastings, you shall hear from me, unless I can do my business otherwise, and for the trinket send me a note at your leisure."
Then they went, but as the lady Blanche left the shop she caught her robe and turned to free it, while she did so flashing at me one of her sweet looks such as I remembered well.