AT THE FALCON INN 219

A man came down from thetap-room door. Nick stepped
aside to let him pass. He was a player, by his air.

He wore a riding-cloak of Holland cloth, neither so
good nor so bad as a riding-cloak might be, but under it
a handsome jerkin overlaid with lace, and belted with a
buff girdle in which was a light Spanish rapier. His
boots were russet cordovan, mid-thigh tall, and the rowels
of his clinking spurs were silver stars. He was large of
frame, and his curly hair was short and brown; so was
his pointed beard. His eyes were singularly bright and
fearless, and bluff self-satisfaction marked his stride; but
his under lip was petulant, and he flicked his boot with
his riding-whip as he shouldered his way along.

“Ye cannot miss the place, sir,” called the tapster after
him. “’T is just beyond Ned Alleyn’s, by the ditch. Yell
never mistake the ditch, sir—Billingsgate is roses to it.”

“Oh, I’ find it fast enough,” the stranger answered ;
“but he should have sent to meet me, knowing I might
come at any hour. ’T is a felon place for thieves; and
I’ve not heart to skewer even a goose on such a night as
this.”

At the sudden breaking of voices upon the silence,
Carew looked up, with a quarrel ripe for picking in his
eye. But seeing who spoke, such a smile came rippling
from the corners of his mouth across his dark, unhappy
face that it was as if a lamp of welcome had been lighted
there. ‘What, Ben!” he cried; “thou here? Why, bless
thine heart, old gossip, ’t is good to see an honest face
amid this pack of rogues.”