The two gentlemen, attended by Gregory and the page, were soon embarked in a wherry whose prow the watermen headed against the current, the destination being some distance up-stream on the opposite bank.
"What of Meg Falkner?" Ermsby said, suddenly, in a tone too low for the servants to hear. "Are you rid of her yet?"
Jerningham's brow turned darker by a shade.
"That were as great a puzzle as to reach this goldsmith's wench," he replied. "I would have married her to Gregory; it seemed no mean fate for a yeoman's daughter that had buried a brat; but she'd have none of that. I durs'n't turn her out lest she make a noise that might come to the bishop. I'm lucky she hath kept quiet, as it is."
"Ay; where else to lodge her? Rotten as it is, it does for that; and that is the only use it hath done me this many a year. There's a cow or two for her maintaining, and some hens. And for company, there's old Jeremy that's half-blind. He can quiet her fears o' nights, when the timbers creak and she thinks it is a ghost walking."
"And what of the house when you are away on the voyage?"
"Troth, all may out then, I care not! Let 'em sell the estate for the debts on it; they'll find themselves losers, I trow. And Mistress Meg will be left in the lurch, poor white-face! As for me, when the ship sails, I shall be quit of that plague."
"Ay, but you'll be quit of this goldsmith's wench, too. Will your 'one sweet hour' or so suffice, think you?"
The faintest smile came into Jerningham's face.
"I will not prophesy," said he, softly. "But, as you well know, when we come to that island, if all goes well, I shall be in some sort a king there."
"Certainly; but what of that, touching this wench?"
"Why, will not the island have room for a queen as well?"
"Oho!" quoth Ermsby, after a short silence. "So the wind blows that way in thy dreams!"
Presently they landed at Paul's Wharf, climbed to Thames Street, which was noisy with carts and drays, and went on up a narrow thoroughfare toward the great church.
"Damn me, I will be a roarer, or't shall cost me a fall."--_Amends for Ladies._
On the February morning when he rose from bed in the coal-house attached to the haunted dwelling in Foster Lane, Captain Ravenshaw waited about the yard for Moll Frith to return from her excursion of the night. When she appeared, he gave her back the key to the gate, and borrowed two angels from her. Armed with these, he bade her repent of her sins, and hastened to Cheapside, turning eastward with the purpose of finding out how and where his new friend, the scholar, fared in the hands of the law.