she
found nobody she went to business. "Could you let a body see a piece of
kersey, think you? I'd fain have a brown or a good dark murrey 'd serve
me--somewhat that should not show dirt, and may be trusted to wear
well.--Good den, Mistress Clere!--Have you e'er a piece o' kersey like
that?"

Master Nicholas Clere, who stood behind the counter, did not move a
finger. He was a tall, big man, and he rested both hands on his
counter, and looked his customer in the face. He was not a man whom
people liked much, for he was rather queer-tempered, and as Mistress
Clere was wont to remark, "a bit easier put out than in." A man of few
words, but those were often pungent, was Nicholas Clere.

"What price?" said he.

"Well! you mustn't ask me five shillings a yard," said the rosy-faced
woman, with a little laugh. That was the price of the very best and
finest kersey.

"Shouldn't think o' doing," answered the clothier.

"Come, you know the sort as 'ill serve me. Shilling a yard at best. If
you've any at eightpence--"

"Haven't."

"Well, then I reckon I must go a bit higher."

"We've as good a kersey at elevenpence," broke in Mrs Clere, "as you'd
wish to see, Alice Mount, of a summer day. A good brown, belike, and
not one as 'll fade--and a fine thread--for the price, you know. You
don't look for kersey at elevenpence to be even with that at
half-a-crown, now, do you? but you'll never repent buying this, I
promise you."

Mrs Clere was not by any means a woman of few words. While she was
talking her husband had taken down the kersey, and opened it out upon
the counter.

"There!" said he gruffly: "take it or leave it."

There were two other women in the shop, to whom Mrs Clere was showing
some coarse black stockings: they looked like mother and daughter.
While Alice Mount was looking at the kersey, the younger of these two
said to the other--

"Isn't that Alice Mount of Bentley?--she that was had to London last
August by the Sheriffs for heresy, with a main lot more?"

"Ay, 'tis she," answered the mother in an undertone.

"Twenty-three of them, weren't there?"

"Thereabouts. They stood to it awhile, if you mind, and then they made
some fashion of submission, and got let off."

"So they did, but I mind Master Maynard said it was but a sorry sort.
He wouldn't have taken it, quoth he."

The other woman laughed slightly. "Truly, I believe that, if he had a
chance to lay hold on 'em else. He loves bri