ame gypsy blood ran strong in both of them.

What passed between them Cicely did not hear, but presently the old man
came out with Emlyn, and looked her and Bolle up and down sharply for a
long while as though to take their measures. At length he said that he
understood from his cousin, whom he now saw for the first time for
over thirty years, that the two of them and their man desired lodgings,
which, as he had empty rooms, he would be pleased to give them if they
would pay the price.

Cicely asked how much this might be, and on his naming a sum, ten silver
shillings a week for the three of them and their horses, that would
be stabled close by, told Emlyn to pay him a pound on account. This he
took, biting the gold to see that it was good, but bidding them in to
inspect the rooms before he pouched it. They did so, and finding them
clean and commodious if somewhat dark, closed the bargain with him,
after which they dismissed the clerk to take their address to Dr. Legh,
who had promised to advise them so soon as he could put their business
forward.

When he was gone and Thomas Bolle, conducted by Smith's apprentice,
had led off the three horses and the packbeast, the old man changed his
manner, and conducting them into a parlour at the back of his shop, sent
his housekeeper, a middle-aged woman with a pleasant face, to make ready
food for them while he produced cordials from squat Dutch bottles which
he made them drink. Indeed he was all kindness to them, being, as he
explained, rejoiced to see one of his own blood, for he had no relations
living, his wife and their two children having died in one of the London
sicknesses. Also he was Blossholme born, though he had left that place
fifty years before, and had known Cicely's grandfather and played with
her father when he was a boy. So he plied them with question after
question, some of which they thought it was not to answer, for he was a
merry and talkative old man.

"Aha!" he said, "you would prove me before you trust me, and who can
blame you in this naughty world? But perhaps I know more about you all
than you think, since in this trade my business is to learn many things.
For instance, I have heard that there was a great trying of witches down
at Blossholme lately, whereat a certain Abbot came off worst, also that
the famous Carfax jewels had been lost, which vexed the said holy Abbot.
They were jewels indeed, or so I have heard, for among them were two
pink pearl