mourning weeds before supper-time."

She had clapped a great Deerskin cap on my head, and giving me a
friendly pat, was going off, when I could not help asking her in a sly
whisper what had become of the Pewterer of Pannier Alley.

"What! you remember him, do you?" she returned, with a half-smile and a
half-sigh. "Well, the Pewterer's here, and as black as you are."

"But I thought you were to wed," I remarked.

"Well!" she went on, almost fiercely, "cannot one wed at the Stag o'
Tyne? We have a brave Chaplain down-stairs,--as good as a Fleet Parson
any day, I wuss."

"But the Pewterer?" I persisted.

"I'll hang the Pewterer round thy neck!" she exclaimed in a pet. "The
Pewterer was unfortunate in his business, and so took to the Road; and
thus we have all come together in Charlwood Chase. But ask me no more
questions, or Captain Night will be deadly angry. Look, he fumes
already."

She tripped away saying this, and in Time, I think; for indeed the
Captain was beginning to show signs of impatience. She being gone, he
took me on his knee, all Black as I was, and in a voice kind enough, but
full of authority, bade me tell him all my History and the bare truth,
else would he have me tied neck and heels and thrown to the fishes.

So I told this strange Man all:--of Hanover Square, and my earliest
childhood. Of the Unknown Lady, and her Behaviour and conversation, even
to her Death. Of her Funeral, and the harsh bearing of Mistress Talmash
and the Steward Cadwallader unto me in my Helplessness and Loneliness.
Of my being smuggled away in a Wagon and sent to school to Gnawbit, and
of the Barbarous cruelty with which I had been treated by that Monster.
And finally, of the old Gentleman that used to cry, "Bear it! Bear it!"
and of his giving me a Guinea, and bidding me run away.

He listened to all I had to say, and then putting me down,

"A strange story," he thoughtfully remarks, "and not learnt out of the
storybooks either, or I sorely err. You have not a Lying Face, my man.
Wait a while, and you'll wear a Mask thicker than all that screen of
soot you have upon you now." But in this he was mistaken; for John
Dangerous ever scorned deception, and through life has always acted
fair and above-board.

"And that Guinea," he continued. "Hast it still?"

I answered that I had, producing it as I spoke, and that I was ready to
pay my Reckoning, and to treat him and the others, in which, meseems,
there spoke less of the