Well, friend, it is easy and safe; a fat merchant and his wife and a
young girl. Mind you, there is no killing to be done if we can help it,
and if we can't help it the Holy Office will shield us. Also it is only
the letter which he thinks that the young woman may carry that the noble
Ramiro wants. Doubtless it has to do with the sacred affairs of the
Church. Any valuables about them we may keep as a perquisite over and
above the pay."

Simon hesitated, but Meg announced with decision,

"It is good enough; these merchant woman generally have jewels hidden in
their stays."

"My dear," interrupted Simon.

"Don't 'my dear' me," said Meg fiercely. "I have made up my mind, so
there's an end. We meet by the Boshhuysen at five o'clock at the big oak
in the copse, where we will settle the details."

After this Simon said no more, for he had this virtue, so useful in
domestic life--he knew when to yield.

On this same morning Adrian rose late. The talk at the supper table on
the previous night, especially Foy's coarse, uneducated sarcasm, had
ruffled his temper, and when Adrian's temper was ruffled he generally
found it necessary to sleep himself into good humour. As the bookkeeper
of the establishment, for his stepfather had never been able to induce
him to take an active part in its work, which in his heart he considered
beneath him, Adrian should have been in the office by nine o'clock. Not
having risen before ten, however, nor eaten his breakfast until after
eleven, this was clearly impossible. Then he remembered that here was a
good chance of finishing a sonnet, of which the last lines were running
in his head. It chanced that Adrian was a bit of a poet, and, like most
poets, he found quiet essential to the art of composition. Somehow, when
Foy was in the house, singing and talking, and that great Frisian brute,
Martin, was tramping to and fro, there was never any quiet, for even
when he could not hear them, the sense of their presence exasperated
his nerves. So now was his opportunity, especially as his mother was
out--marketing, she said--but in all probability engaged upon some
wretched and risky business connected with the people whom she called
martyrs. Adrian determined to avail himself of it and finish his sonnet.

This took some time. First, as all true artists know, the Muse must be
summoned, and she will rarely arrive under an hour's appropriate and
gloomy contemplation of things in general. Then, espec